A Time for Wolves
by Sofisol612
Summary: Jon gets to an agreement with Stannis, Arya finds a way to go to the Wall and the surviving Starks struggle to recover their forgotten identities and their lost family.
1. Jon

**Disclaimer:** A Song of Ice and Fire and all its places and characters belong to GRMM.

 **Author Note:** this was the first fic I ever wrote. I started writing its first version 2 years ago, when I was still reading A Feast for Crows and trying to get over from the Red Wedding. The main idea I had was to reunite the surviving Starks, and though I have edited it many times since then, I did not change that. Some things here might seem a little far-fetched because of this, but hopefully you'll like it all the same.

 **Jon**  
He was in the yard, helping some of his younger sworn brothers with their swordplay. His wounds were not fully healed, but he didn't think it was reason enough to stay idle or in rest, especially in such agitated times as those. However, he could still defeat most of the men of the Night's Watch, even though he wasn't wholly recovered yet. Stannis's knights were a different matter: they had been trained to fight, the same as Jon, and it wasn't so easy to beat them. Now that the king was in the Wall, his knights trained in the yard together with the Black Brothers. However, that day nobody had challenged him to fight, so he was teaching a new recruit called Satin how to swordfight instead. Suddenly, the boy stepped back, and Jon turned to see who he was looking at. It was the Lady Melisandre, surrounded by half a dozen queen's men. She approached him and beckoned him: "The king would speak with you, Jon Snow".

He looked at her beautiful but unsettling face, trying not to avoid her red eyes. He asked to be allowed to change, figuring that his sweaty clothes were not fit to stand before a king, and she agreed, telling him to meet them atop the Wall. Thinking that this red woman was Stannis's real queen, and not the other one he had left at Eastwach, he went to his cell to find clean and warm clothes to put on. He also took Longclaw, and slung it across his back.

After that, he went to the cage, where Melisandre was waiting for him, this time alone. They went up together.

"What does His Grace want of me" Jon wanted to know.

"All you can give, Jon Snow. He is a king."

The day was bright and the Wall was weeping, Jon noticed as they rose. He was also aware of Melisandre's presence, very close to him. She was dressed lightly, with no furs to protect her from the cold, but she didn't seem to mind. When they got to the top and went out of the cage, they saw the king standing there, waiting for them.

"I have brought you the Bastard of Winterfell, Your Grace," Melisandre announced.

Stannis turned to study him, and Jon did the same. The king's look and his clenched position made him uneasy. Jon knelt before him, wondering what he would ask of him.

"Rise, Snow. I have some matters to discuss with you."

Jon did as he was bid, and Stannis started to question him about the rumors he had heard about him. Jon told him what he had done, and explained that he had never turned on the Night's Watch, not even when he had killed Qhorin or when he had slept with Ygritte. In the end, Stannis said he believed in what he said, because he knew Lord Eddard to be a man of honor, and he also knew Slynt, the man who had spread most of the rumors about him, to be a treacherous liar. After having stated this, the king sighted and paused, announcing in this way that the time had come to talk about the things that really concerned him. Jon looked up at him, wondering what the matter of the conversation was, and what Stannis could want with a man of the Night's Watch like him.

"When the Night's Watch needed help," the king started saying "you asked for it to the 5 kings of Westeros, without preferring or excluding any of them. The only one who answered was me. You have a war to fight against the White Walkers, and the Seven Kingdoms' future depends on it. As I understand that, I have decided to help the Watch, and to lend you my army for as long as your war lasts. However, as there are still people who call themselves 'Lord of the Seven Kingdoms', I also have a war to fight. I need help to win it, because the people of Westeros do not recognize me as their rightful king."

Jon didn't know how to answer. It was true that Stannis had helped them fight the wildlings (despite them being human and thus not the real enemy, they had tried to cross South of the Wall by force, without submitting to the King's laws, and Stannis had stopped them.) But Jon couldn't offer Stannis his help: the Night's Watch couldn't intervene in Westeros's wars. It had been like this for years, because even if the high lords could kill each other without much problem, the Watch had to work properly for the realms of men's sake and, as the brothers of the Night's Watch came from different places, families and Houses, which many times were at war with that of their own sworn brothers, intervening in the wars would mean the dissolution of the Watch. Jon didn't say anything, sure that Stannis already knew that. Then the King spoke again:

"I need to find a region in which I can settle and from which I can start fighting again. As I am now in the Wall, the most convenient Kingdom is the North. What I am asking is that you help me get the northern Lords' loyalty."

"But, Your Grace, I don't have the power to do that. I am a man of the Night's Watch, and I have nothing to do with any inner conflict in the Seven Kingdoms. Nobody will pay my opinion on that any mind, and I don't know how to get the North's loyalty."

"Your brother was proclaimed King in the North by his own bannermen. He usurped my authority as king, but he got the North's loyalty. Now the kingdom is under Lannister rule, and House Bolton holds the power that the Starks had before. However, I am sure that if any of them happened to have the chance to fight for the House Stark once more, they would forget the Bolton traitors without thinking it twice, and they would accept the king that the Lord of Winterfell recognizes as the only true one."

"I understand what you mean, Your Grace, but I can't do that. My name was always Snow, not Stark, and however dishonorable the Boltons may be, I doubt that the North will want to have a 'Lord Snow' ruling them from Winterfell." Jon said, thinking on how it had bothered him at the beginning to be called "Lord Snow" at the Watch. It would be impossible to find somebody who would acknowledge him as the rightful Lord of Winterfell, let alone someone who would fight for him.

"I never said there would be a 'Lord Snow' in Winterfell. If you accept my proposal, you will kneel before me, I will touch your shoulders with my sword and, when you get up again on your feet, you will be Lord Jon Stark, of Winterfell. As king, I have this faculty," Stannis told him then.

That was a tempting idea for Jon, but he couldn't accept it just like that. Obtaining the title of Lord of Winterfell as a result of his brothers's deaths was something horrible and dishonorable. So, instead of accepting the offer, he objected.

"But I swore not to hold lands or titles when I became a man of the Night'swatch. I can't do what you tell me without being considered a deserter, and deserving to be beheaded for that."

"If you were to fight for my cause, I would personally make sure that you are not seen as a deserter and that whoever that is named Lord Commander of the Night's Watch allows you to leave the Wall alive, without being persecuted through all of the Seven Kingdoms until your death."

"If that is your proposal, Your Grace, I would like to have some time to consider it, without accepting or rejecting it definitely for now." Jon asked and Stannis nodded.

"This is not an offer to be taken lightly. However, having as I do 2 wars to fight, I can't allow myself to waste much time. I shall therefore give you 10 days, Lord Snow, to decide whether you want to accept or reject my proposal."

"I thank you, Your Grace. Is that all?"

"It is. You may leave, Snow."

Jon went down again and decided to walk to the weirwoods that were beyond the Wall, to ask for the Old Gods' help in making his decision. While he was walking, he thought about Winterfell's weirwood, and the Godswood. He thought about the castle in which he had lived during all of his childhood, until the moment in which he decided to go to the Wall. Winterfell had been his home, but he had never thought that it could be his: he had always known that it was Robb the one who would inherit it, and when Robb died Jon was already in the Watch, and he had quit the possibility to have a castle of his own. But now that he had this possibility back, he realized that he had always wanted Winterfell. It had never been his but it had been his home, the place where he had grown up. He was more than willing to let any of his brothers or sisters inherit their father's castle, but this was not the case. If Jon didn't accept it, another man from another family would take Winterfell for himself. It would most likely be the traitor Roose Bolton's son. And he was also a bastard, so he had no more rights than Jon to any land or title.

Jon finally got to the place he was looking for and he sat by the trees. It was a quiet place, and there was nobody about to interrupt his thoughts. He prayed for the Old Gods, who seemed to be looking at him from the weirwoods' eyes, to help him take the right decision.

Then Jon wondered what would happen if he should accept the offer. Probably his father's most loyal bannermen would fight beside him, free the North from the ironmen and attack the Boltons (and any other House on their side.) They would accept Stannis as the King of the North and they would help their new king conquer the rest of the Seven Kingdoms. All of that seemed acceptable for Jon, and even desirable: it was the possibility for him to be everything he had wanted since he was a child. But there were 2 reasons that made him doubt.

One of those reasons was the memory of the late Lord Commander Mormont saying "when dead men come hunting in the night, do you think it matters who sits the Iron Throne?" Jon knew that the war against the Others was more important than the southern lords' "Game of Thrones", but Stannis had helped the Watch, and he could keep helping them. If the white walkers got south of the Wall, it would not matter whoever sat on the Throne, because both the King and the poorest of the smallfolk would die. But now that the disaster could be prevented, it did matter. A king that showed no intention of listening about the growing threat beyond the Wall would be Westeros's doom, and didn't deserve the Throne (at least to Jon's eyes), but one who would listen and help them could save the Realms of Men, whose protection was the main purpose of the Night's Watch.

The other problem was the weirwoods: Jon had always believed in the Old Gods, however little they had listened to him of late, and the godswood had been his favorite place in Winterfell. Jon shuddered to think of the possibility that Melisandre, the red priestess at Stannis's service, may decide to burn Winterfell's weirwood. Or the ones that were there, in front of him right then. He couldn't let that happen. Should he accept Stannis's proposal, Jon told himself, it would be on condition that the Old Gods would remain as the Gods of the North, and that no weirwood would be burned.

Jon looked at the trees, as if waiting for an answer, but the only thing he sensed was the wind that moved its branches and leaves. And after some minutes, when he was about to start the walk back to Castle Black to get there in time for dinner, he noticed Ghost's presence, who had sat silently beside him, without Jon hearing him. Jon hadn't seen his direwolf since their parting beyond the Wall, and he hadn't been sure if he would ever see him again. Was that the gods' answer, then? Had they given him his wolf back because he had taken the right decision? As he asked himself that question, he noticed that he had, in fact, made a decision. He was going to wait the 10 days he had and after that, he would tell Stannis that he accepted his proposal, on the conditions he had just thought. But, for the time being, he would act as if nothing had happened.

He got up and, after petting Ghost affectionately as a way of welcome, he walked to Castle Black with his direwolf. He went to the hall where the meals were served, and he immediately noticed that something was wrong: everybody were arguing and shouting, and some of them insulted Jon when he got in. In the end, his friends Sam, Pyp and Grenn told him what had happened: he had been chosen Lord Commander of the Night's Watch.


	2. Arya

**Arya**

She had been traveling in that ship for nearly two months when they got to Eastwach by the Sea. It had taken her many hours to find one that would take her from Saltpans to the Wall, and when she did she had had to pay all the money she had, and she had not even been given a cabin.

"You don't have enough stags for this journey, boy" was what captain Rodrik had told her when she gave him what she had.

"I'll sleep in the deck if there are no empty cabins, I'll row with the men, I'll help in the kitchen and I'll do any work you ask me during the trip, but please, take me!" She had pleaded.

In the end, the captain had allowed her to travel in the ship, and after some time he even let her sleep in a small empty cabin, and she was only asked to do the washing up. But of course, he had also wanted to know the name of that boy who was so desperate to get to the Wall. He had asked her what her story was. She knew that the truth would not do, so she made a new one up, using an identity she had already adopted before.

"My name is Arry", she had said. "I am an orphan boy from Saltpans. I never met my father, and my mother died a moon ago. The only family I have is my older brother, who is in the Night's Watch. I want to join him, and be a man of the Night's Watch too. They say there's food in the Wall, and that there everybody has a job to do".

The captain seemed satisfied with Arya's answer, and he didn't question her again. The men of Queen Alysanne's crew always called her Arry, without so much as suspecting that she was a girl. Doing the dishes was an easy task; she had had harder jobs at Harrenhal. The voyage was relatively calm, despite its duration.

Upon their arrival at the port they were received by three sworn brothers. The captain told them he had recruits for the Watch, he asked for some rooms in which he and his crew could stay for the night and he bid his farewell to her and other three men who would remain at the Wall too before following one of the guards who promised to guide them to some available rooms and offered to give them food and drink.

One of the men who stayed with her was a wandering crow, and the other ones were recruits. The recruiter led them inside the castle and called another man to see to them. He wished them good luck and then left them with the other brother of the Night's Watch.

"Welcome to Eastwatch by the Sea. I am Tygett Rivers, First Steward. What are your names?"

Arya left the other ones introduce themselves first. After that, she said she was called Arry, and she asked him to take her to Castle Black. Tygett frowned at her request.

"In Castle Black they already have more than twice the men we have here in Eastwach. Taking you there would be most inconvenient".

"But my brother is there! It's because of him that I decided to come here!" Arya complained.

"Tell me, Arry, who is this brother of yours? May be that I know him, for I come from there. It's been no more than three years since I moved to Eastwach by the Sea". Tygett seemed genuinely interested, but Arya couldn't tell him the truth.

"Then you surely don't know him, because he came to the Wall just 2 years ago", she replied. "Listen, I only came here to find my brother, the only family I have left. I spent all the money I had to come here. If you will deny me to see my brother and to live with him in Castle Black, I'll leave in the first ship that sails off to any city in Westeros."

"I'll speak with Lord Commander Pyke about this, but I can't do anything" Tygett promised, but Arya was not sure if she should believe him. "In the meanwhile, you'll stay here and start your training." Then he turned to speak to the other ones too. "Follow me; I'll give you new clothes (as you may know, only black is allowed here.)", he said, almost as if it was a joke.

Rivers gave each one of them clothing of their size and then took them to the armory so they could take a sword and a shield for training. Arya asked to use her own sword, Needle. Tygett regarded her with curiosity before asking her where she had gotten it.

"My father gave it to me" she lied. "He was a knight, and he hoped I would be one too."

"And your brother? Why isn't he a knight? Why did he choose to take the black, when he could have been a renowned warrior?"

"Because he's a bastard", she said. It was the truth, and also a good answer, because it didn't give up too much information. Surely there were many bastards at the Wall.

"So you're a knight's trueborn son? What's your surname, Arry?"

Arya tried to think of a house of knights in the North, and the only one she could recall was house Cassel, so that was her answer. River's curiosity was satisfied, but he told Arya that she couldn't use her sword to train because it was a real one, and it could seriously wound or even kill the other recruits. The swords they used for training didn't have an edge, and were especially made for training and tourneys. After saying that, he proceeded to take Arya, Pate and Will, the other recruits, to the training yard.

Ser Glendon, the master-at-arms, was surprised by Arya's ability and style in sword-fighting, and he asked her who had taught her. She told him that her father had hired a braavosi warrior to teach her.

"You are still very small now, and probably not strong enough, but when you are a man grown you may be the best swordsman in the Wall" he told her.  
Arya smiled, wishing it could still be true with her being a woman grown, instead of a man.

She could defeat some of her opponents, but not without difficultly (even though she knew better than them how to fight, she was still an 11-year-old girl, and she was as tall as most of her adversaries' shoulders.) When the lesson finished they went to have dinner, and Arya noticed how few were the men living in that castle. Some of them would be ranging beyond the Wall, Arya supposed, or recruiting new men. Even so, Arya couldn't count more than 100 people in the dining hall.

Each one of the newcomers was assigned a room, and then they were left free to spend the evening making themselves comfortable and exploring the castle. Arya strolled through Eastwatch, as she watched the black brothers of the order of the builders work to keep that incredibly large building that the Wall was. She saw also many other people performing different tasks: they were the stewards, who were in charge of keeping the castle, doing the cooking, washing the clothes and many other things. Arya thought that, if she could not be a ranger, she would be content with being a steward.

She also thought about Jon. She was determined to see him. She decided that if Tygettt didn't take her she would walk the distance between the two castles and get there by herself. Walking in a straight line and using the Wall as a guide, it was impossible to get lost. However, she could not reveal herself yet. Arya knew that every man could join the Night's Watch, but once you swore your vows there was no turning back. Arya decided to lie until she could swear her oath, and not until there was no way back would she reveal her identity. They couldn't turn her down after accepting her, she thought, because nobody could leave the Night's Watch while they lived.

With that idea in her mind she went to bed that night. She smiled hopefully before falling in a peaceful sleep, as she hadn't since what had happened at the Twins.


	3. Rickon

**Rickon**

He walked into the forest and the trees' canopies covered him almost completely from the sunlight, which had long since started to fade as the evening passed by. The forest was dark, and it had a mysterious look that excited Rickon, even though his mission there was only an uninteresting daily task. Reddy, the woman who was in charge of making the fires, had asked him to go there to fetch firewood. That was the reason why he was in that place. His "mother" allowed him to go there alone, as long as he didn't go far away and on condition that he came back before dark.

Osha had looked after Rickon ever since they parted from Bran, Hodor and the Reeds. She was the only person Rickon had trusted at the beginning, when they first got to the town where they lived now. She was kind with him, and protective, but she let him do practically everything he wanted, as long as there was no danger in it. He took a liking to climbing, both rocks and trees, and Osha allowed him to do so, as she watched him attentively. If she believed he was about to fall, she would just give him a warning, but that was all. He also liked to go hunting with Shaggydog, but he could only do that when he entered its skin in his sleep. Osha had made a lance for him and Rickon was learning to use it, but he was not yet invited in the hunting parties of the adults.

Rickon had lost all his family. All of them had left. Each one of them had promised to come back and, no matter how much Rickon had screamed, shrieked and complained, they had still gone away. None of them returned as they had promised. Osha was the only one he had left, together with the people who had been living with them for some months, and Rickon had only just started to befriend them.

But now that he had learnt to speak with those people, it didn't seem so hard to him to get used to them, and he knew that place now as well as he knew himself. Not even the forest in which he was now picking up firewood could scare him. Rickon himself had offered to fetch it, because it was the most amusing thing he could do until after 2 days, when the punishment Osha had given him for fighting with another boy ended, and thus he was allowed to play again.

His new home was a little town of "Free Folk" in Skagos. Osha had told him about it while they traveled from Winterfell to there, after he had asked her where they were going. "We are going to a town in Skagos. That's the place where my mother was born. She decided to go beyond the Wall when she was young, and that's where I was born. But she came back to her hometown after I grew up, so we're going to meet her."

And so they had. Keylie, Osha's mother, was considered to be an old woman, at least by the Free Folk. She must be at least 40 years. She was also thought to be wise because she knew how to speak and read in the Common Tongue, while most of the Skagosi only spoke the Old Tongue. She had also learned some healing treatments that were common between the wildlings, and she was charged with aiding the sick and wounded of the village.

When she had learned that her daughter had come to live with her, she had been thrilled and had hugged her tightly. But after that she had seen Rickon, and asked who he was. Osha lied, saying he was her son, because half of the village's inhabitants were there, looking with curiosity at the newcomers. It was not until they were in the privacy of Keylie's tent that Osha had told her mother the whole story. And the whole story didn't start when they parted from Bran, or with Theon's attack. Not even when Osha had come to Winterfell. For the woman to understand why her daughter was taking care of him, she had to tell her things that not even Rickon knew, as the Others' attacks beyond the Wall which had driven her and her group south, where she had known the deserters of the Night's Watch with whom she went south of the Wall, and traveled stealthily for almost a year, until they found Bran.

After hearing the whole story, Keylie stayed quiet for some time, thinking what to do about it. In the end, she said she would raise Rickon by herself, and teach him the Old Tongue. If anybody asked, Rickon was Osha's child by a northern lord. Nobody was likely to ask for his father, because most of the Skagosi didn't know the name of the lords.

After he learned to speak in the Old Tongue, Rickon started playing with the other children in the town. There were only 4 families there, besides his own (Osha and Keylie) and there weren't many kids (twelve-year-olds were considered adults there.)The ones that spent more time with Rickon were Keit, Lyra and Deiro. They were siblings, and they were older than him, but they took him in almost all their games.

Keit, a tall and dark-haired 10-years-old boy, was the oldest of the three. He taught him how to use the lance Osha had given him and he told him things about the Free Folk, but it was still hard for Rickon to understand him. He seemed older than he was, and in Skagos he was considered "almost a man grown". Sometimes, he reminded him of his elder brothers: Robb, always the model to follow, so strong and smart, or Bran, always close to him, willing to help him and teach him things, answering his questions when nobody else would.

Lyra was an eight-year-old girl, tall for her age, but shorter than Keit. Her hair was curly and brown, and her big and shiny eyes were the same color. She could speak the Common Tongue, because Keylie had decided to teach her after noticing her interest in her studies (she was the only one in the village who enjoyed having lessons.) Thanks to that, she was the first of the three siblings who ever spoke to Rickon and played with him. She had to teach him the games that Skagosi children played, because the games he knew (Come-into-my-Castle, Monsters-and-Maidens and The-Lord-of-the-Crossing) were utterly impossible for them to understand.

Deiro was the youngest one: he was of Rickon's age. He was smaller than him, but he could climb, run and fight just as well as Rickon could. Deiro didn't know how to use a lance, so Keit trained both Rickon and him together. Rickon had never had a "peer" before; he had always been the youngest, the smallest, the one everyone spoiled and whose worst frustration was not being able to do whatever his older siblings did. Now he had a rival, someone who didn't lose on purpose when he played with him, and who could do the same as him. This made Rickon angry, and sometimes they fought and beat each other, until one day when Shaggydog went forth to defend him. The direwolf had taken 2 fingers from Deiro's right hand, and the boy avoided Rickon for the following 3 days. When he did dare come near him him again he was still afraid of him, and he hardly talked to him again.

The children would be playing right now, running among the houses and chasing after each other. He had been invited to play with them, but he had had to turn down their invitation because he was grounded. It had been 5 days now from his incident with Deiro, but Osha hadn't lifted his punishment yet. He had 2 days left before he could play with his friends again. In the meanwhile, he could only watch them from the distance, attend to his classes and help the adults with their jobs, as he was doing now.

The other children in the town were either very old or very young (for Rickon, anyone under 4 years old was too young, because he had never played with a younger child.) The adults sometimes watched them in their play, sang songs or told them stories. Each of them had a different main job, but they helped with everything when it was needed. The children's father was the chief hunter, and his main responsibility was to provide meat to feed the people. Their mother, Reddy, was in charge of lighting the fires, cooking dinner in them and keeping them burning during the night to light up the place. Osha had decided to look after the children, and Keyllie was the healer. The other ones had jobs as collectors, weavers, builders and many more.

He found in his way many fallen branches. He examined them carefully and picked among them the ones that were larger and dryer. He took his time in doing so and, when he considered he had got enough, he started back.

Rickon was getting used to his new home, but he wasn't sure if he should call it that. After losing everything he had, which had seemed so safe, how could he be certain that the town wouldn't be destroyed? Or that the people who lived there wouldn't vanish one night, leaving him and Osha behind? Or even worse, what would Rickon do if Osha left him too? He trusted her, who always seemed to care for him for real, but his other mother had also loved him, and she was not by his side anymore. The same could be said about Robb. Likely he would never see them again. And Bran neither, because nor Rickon nor Bran knew where the other was.

Then he got to the village, where his friends played together and the adults helped prepare dinner. He handed the firewood to Reddy, who thanked him for his help. Then he sat on the ground, waiting for them to finish cooking the meat and to serve him his ration in his small wooden plate.

He looked around, to the small dwellings of the Free Folk, to his new friends who were running and playing, and to the men and women, who were gathered around the fire they had lit up to cook that night's dinner. That town was everything Rickon had now. Just as Winterfell had been once everything he had and knew.

Then, Rickon decided that it didn't matter if they abandoned him, or if the town was destroyed, or if, for any reason, that village stopped being his home. Winterfell had been his House, for the time it had lasted, and Skagos was his home now, for as long as it would last. If it was taken from him, it didn't mean that it hadn't been his home. And if he was forced to leave Skagos behind in the future, he would probably find another place where he could live; a new place to call home.

 **Author Note:** I'm sorry for this uneventful chapter but, as we know little (and with little I mean nothing) of Rickon's whereabouts, I had to make everything up. The purpose of this chapter was to establish a setting for his story and introducing the few OCs that will interact with him. I hope you liked it all the same :)


	4. Jon II

**Jon**

The 10 days he had agreed on with Stannis had come and gone, and Jon hadn't talked with him again. Now he was Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, and it seemed to Jon that accepting the self-proclaimed king's offer would mean to forsake his duty to his sworn brothers, who had chosen him as their leader. Besides, who would be Lord Commander if he quit? Janos Slynt? Jon thought it was a terrible choice, but it was possible that he would end in the position if Jon rejected it.

After breaking his fast he went to Stannis's chambers. The king hadn't specifically required his presence, but Jon imagined he would be waiting for him nonetheless, to finish the discussion they had started before the end of the choosing. When he got to the king's chambers, he found that the door was guarded by 2 men. One of the guards opened it and informed the king that the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch was waiting without and, at his king's command, he let Eddard Stark's son in.

The king was sitting in front of a wooden desk with many candles, maps and letters on it, at the back of the room. Jon approached him and stopped when he was at some paces from him.

"Good morning, Your Grace" Jon said, bowing. "I came to discuss the matter we have talked about before I was chosen Lord Commander, of my legitimization, and the northern lords' loyalty."

"Good morning, Lord Commander Snow. As far as I know, we have already discussed that matter, and the only thing missing is your reply. Do you accept my offer, or do you not?" Stannis said dryly, but he gestured toward the chair in front of him, inviting him to take a sit. Jon sat down before answering.

"I meant to accept it, but then I was chosen Lord Commander," Jon explained. "I don't want to forsake the brothers who chose me, and to leave the Wall without a leader. That's why, although I would really like to take your offer, my duty to the Night's Watch demand that I turn it down. This is my answer, Your Grace. But if somehow I can help you without leaving my post, I swear that I will, because of all the kings that there are now in Westeros, the one who most deserves the title is you."

"I am the only king of Westeros: the others are usurpers of my throne," he corrected severely, staring intently at him. "You are an honorable and dutiful man, Lord Jon. I am not used to making concessions, but this time it may be worth it. I will make you another proposal, then: that you are Lord Commander of the Night's Watch and Lord of Winterfell at the same time. The laws that forbid the men of the Watch to intervene in the wars of Westeros or to have families were established to focus the men of the Watch in one objective alone, and that worked while the Watch had a good reputation, but now it's different: the men that are now defending the Wall are not enough, many rangers have gone missing and many others are deserting. This is the time to change the rules. The Lannisters changed the Kingsguard; I want you to change the Night's Watch."

"Do you think I can be Lord Commander and Lord of Winterfell at the same time? That I can get married and have children without being a deserter? I don't think my sworn brothers will like that."

"Whatever goes for you, Lord Snow, will go for them. If you accept this offer, you will give your sworn brothers the right of getting married and having children, as long as they continue living in the Wall's castles, and the firstborn son of each of them should be given to the Night's Watch too. And they will be allowed to inherit lands, but they would be after their siblings in the succession, and they will not visit their castles more frequently than you, the Lord Commander, allow them. I don't think your brothers would object to these terms."

"If those terms were accepted by the majority of my brothers, I would undoubtedly accept them too. But once you named me "Lord Stark of Winterfell", my duty in the Wall would remain my first priority, because the threat of the Others is far more urgent and dangerous than the war against the Lannisters and the Ironmen. Years may go by before I could honor the promise I made you."

"I will not ask you to neglect your duty as Commander, Lord Snow. The only thing I want is that you send a raven to each castle of House Stark's bannermen explaining our situation: the 2 wars we are fighting. Ask every loyal bannerman to send a small number of men to the Wall, to help the Watch without taking the black. Those men would be returned to their homes as soon as the Others' threat is over. You should ask your bannermen to simulate being on the Lannisters' side for now. But when I march south to defeat Lord Bolton, they should join me, and help me conquer the Seven Kingdoms. I also want you to come with me when I conquer the North, but as soon as that region is under my power you will be free to go back to the Wall and fight against the White Walkers."

Even though this proposal seemed impossible, it didn't demand of him nothing he was unwilling to give, and it let him do his duty at the same time as it handed him over Winterfell and his father's titles, which he had never been allowed even to think of possessing. It was very tempting, but even so, he couldn't make so important decisions that involved so many people without even knowing what his men thought on that. The Old Bear's death had taught him that, when angered, some men would not think it twice before baring steel against their Lord Commander, and making this decision on his own would probably offend them. Besides, he had yet to discuss Melisandre and her Red God.

"I accept your offer then, if my brothers don't object. And if you swear to me that you will allow the North to keep to the Old Gods, and that the weirwoods will not be harmed."

"I swear by the Old Gods, by the New and by R'hllor, that the northern godswoods will remain undamaged if you choose to support me. Now kneel, Jon Snow, Lord Commander of the Night's Watch."

Jon did as Stannis told him. As a boy, he had fantasied many times with the idea of being legitimated, but he had never wished it to be like that. He wondered how he would explain that to his sworn brothers. Maybe Stannis would do it for him, but it wouldn't be convenient, because it could make the men of the Watch think that their Commander was being controlled by a king, as if he was a mere bannerman, and the Watch a simple group of knights and warriors at his service. Looking fixedly and solemnly to Jon's eyes, Stannis touched Jon's shoulders lightly with the sword they called Lightbringer.

"Arise, Jon Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Lord Commander of the Night's Watch."

Jon rose, feeling sad and a little guilty. In his boyhood's dreams, his father was always there when he was given the surname of his House, and that name was never accompanied by the title of "Lord of Winterfell", being both his father and Robb alive. It was precisely because all of his brothers had died that Jon was finally a Stark, and he couldn't help but feel guilty for it, even though he had never wished for any of them to die.

"I swear to serve you with my life, my king, as long as my duty to the Night's Watch is not affected," Jon told Stannis, because it was the only oath he was willing to keep.

"I accept your service, Lord Jon Stark, and I name you Warden of the North, and I charge you with the duty of defending the North and keeping the King's peace there in my name. Your lord father held that title in his life, and I hope that in the future it remains in the hands of the House Stark of Winterfell, by means of your children and descendants."

"It's a great honor, Your Grace. I thank you once more for coming here, and for the help you promised the Night's Watch. But, how will we explain this agreement to the men of Castle Black?"

"I can do it myself if you want, Lord Stark. However, I think that a speech from their Lord Commander would be more convincing and effective."

"I agree, Your Grace. But, what will I tell them? What will they think of me? That I am neither honorable enough to live in accordance with the vows I swore nor honest enough to admit it, and that I changed the laws to avoid the deserters' punishment?" Suddenly he felt anxious about explaining this complicated idea to his sworn brothers. He would most likely be misunderstood, insulted and called an oath breaker.

"You very well know, Jon Stark, that that is not the truth. Tell them the true reason that convinced you to accept my offer. Explain to them that your plan is not to abandon the Night's Watch when the realms of men need you most, but to get an ally in that fight. Do it this very night, Lord Stark," the king ordered.

"As Your Grace commands" Jon accepted and, by Stannis's leave, he withdrew from the room.

He went to Maester Aemon's chambers to tell Sam and the Maester what had happened. He found them busy with some letters from the Shadow Tower and Eastwach by the Sea, but when they saw their Lord Commander they left it right away. Jon sat with them and told them of his conversations with the king, while they listened, the maester attentively and Sam open-mouthed.

"These are good news. If we can get the northern Lords' help, we'll have more possibilities against the White Walkers. Declaring for Stannis seems a small enough price," Sam said after Jon had told them everything.

"I think the same, but it worries me that the other men may not. Janos Slynt could use it against me, even though he doesn't care one bit about honor."

"I am at your service, Jon Stark, as I was when you were Snow," said Maester Aemon. "Your decision will change the Night's Watch almost completely, but your reasons are good enough to justify it and, considering our present situation, this change could be our last hope when the Others truly attack the Wall. I think that most of your brothers will respect your choice once they understand it, and those who don't will be the ones that had decided from the beginning not to respect you."

That night, before having dinner, he went to the Common Hall and, standing in the center of it, to make certain everybody could see him, he asked everybody who was there (black brothers, wildlings and Stannis' men) to make silence and listen to him.

"I want to make an announcement for all of you. I want you to listen until I am done speaking, so you can understand what is happening before you decide to insult me or to criticize my choice. May I ask that of you?" He had decided that by starting this way he would avoid being insulted and disrespected, and he wouldn't have to lose so much time trying to explain and justify himself amidst shouts and boos.

"Many of you have seen with your own eyes the threat beyond the Wall," Jon said after most of the men had agreed to hear him out without interrupting him. "Winter is coming, and the Others are moving forward. We men can't keep on fighting with each other if we mean to survive. The Night's Watch needs help, and Stannis has offered it. Both of us have made an agreement that involves many changes for the Watch, but many advantages too. This deal is not definitive, and it will only be if it is accepted by you, the men of the Night's Watch, who will vote on this matter after you hear the whole plan, because even if as your Lord Commander I could make this choice by myself, I thought it would be better to take into account my sworn brothers' opinion on so important a matter as this one."

And thus, having the attention of all the men, who felt flattered and especially interested, knowing that their opinions would be listened to, he proceeded to explain Stannis's plan. When he finished talking, his friends cheered him, and Jon, triumphant, went to their table and sat with them, who congratulated him and expressed their surprise, because Jon hadn't mentioned them anything of that before. The vote was carried out after dinner, in the same way as the Lord Commander's Election, but in this case there were only 2 options: "yes" and "no". Most of them voted "yes", and the matter was settled.

That night Jon slept soundly, and he dreamed that he was at the gates of Castle Black, facing the Kingsroad. In the distance he could see a girl walking on the road, drawing near and calling him, asking for help. He couldn't see her clearly, but he knew who she was nonetheless. Jon got up and started running towards her, but a voice behind him made him stop.

"Your pack is scattered and winter is coming. But different roads often lead to the same castle. There is still hope, for the living," it said.

He turned round to see the man who had talked to him, but there was nobody there. However, the mysterious voice spoke again.

"You must not look for her. She knows where you are, but you don't know where to find her. That's why it has to be your sister the one who comes to you, and not the other way around. Wait for her here, and soon she will come."

Jon looked around again, trying to find out where the voice came from. The only thing he found was a crow; a three-eyed-crow that was looking intently at him.

Jon turned to the Kingsroad again, decided to ignore the crow and to find Arya. But when he did, she was not there anymore.

 **Authot note:** I'd like to thank the readers who have posted reviews on my work. They weren't many, but they were good, and they made me very happy. I hope you like it so far.

As to SilvasPrickle's question, I started writing this fic long ago, when I had just finished reading A Feast for Crows, and was just beginning with Dance, so I decided to keep Bran out of this at the beginning. There will be a chapter about him, but not for a long time. Jon and Arya will be the main characters for most of this fanfic.


	5. Arya II

**Arya**

Many days after her arrival at Eastwach, Tygett Rivers told her, at her insistence, that there had been no way to talk Cotter Pyke into sending her to Castle Black. She left the night after that. If anybody had noticed, they didn't follow her. She hadn't sworn the Night's Watch's vows yet. She walked by the Wall, so there was no way she could get lost. She had only to keep walking forward until she got to Castle Black. She passed by some other castles in the way; the abandoned castles of the Night's Watch. She slept in some of them, to shelter from the cold during the nights (her journey lasted 4 days and their nights.)

In the first of those nights, in a castle that, according to Old Nan, was called Torches, she had a nightmare that didn't let her sleep. She dreamed that she was again in King's Landing, facing Baelor's sept, about to witness her father's execution. She tried to run to him, but she was stopped by a man who was all dressed in black. He was Yoren. But when the Yoren from her dream spoke to her, he didn't say what the real Yoren had told her then. Instead he said something that she later remembered her father had told her once: " _Winter is coming, and when the snows fall and the white wind blows, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives."_

"My family was killed," Arya answered. "But I survived. I have no pack anymore, and I am a lone wolf now. I could survive on my own up to now. I don't need another pack." But Arya knew that it was a lie, and she did want to belong in a pack; a pack that would last forever, as she had thought when she was a little girl that her family would.

She wrenched free from Yoren's embrace and she tried to run away, but then she realized that they weren't in King's Landing anymore, but somewhere in the Riverlands, near the Twins, and her companion was not Yoren, but the Hound. He continued with the exchange of words she had started with Yoren. " _Some of your pack were killed, that's true, but not all. You could live as a lone wolf so far, but it's not winter yet, and when it comes, you'll need your family," he explained. "But you already know that. Otherwise, you wouldn't be here_."

And suddenly she realized that the scene had changed again: she was now far in the North, walking by the Wall, and she could see Castle Black in the distance. There was someone dressed in black there, waiting for her. It was Jon. Arya ran to him, but each moment he was further away from her. She tried to run faster, but the wind pushed her back. It started to snow, and the snow fell heavier every second. She slipped and fell to the ground. She couldn't get up; every time she tried she fell again. The snow started to bury her, and she couldn't see anything anymore. She screamed as loudly as she could, trying to call Jon, but the only one who heard it was herself, who woke up shuddering upon hearing it. Eager to resume her journey and get to Castle Black, Arya set out immediately after opening her eyes, though it was still dark.

When she finally got there, many nights after that, 2 young men in black saw her come and approached her. "Good evening. Could you tell us your name, and the reason why you are here?" One of them asked.

Arya decided to assume a new identity, because she had to hide from Jon until after she had said her vows, and saying that she was a Cassel would only draw his attention. "My name is Gendry, and I come from King's Landing. Yoren found me living in the streets of Flea Bottom and he offered me to join the Night's Watch. He told me they would feed me here, and that I would have a place to sleep in. I accepted, and I traveled with his group, but we were attacked. He died, and most of them did too. After that, I decided to make the rest of the journey by myself, and here I am. Can I join the Watch, then?"

"Of course you can! The Watch accepts and needs all the men who want to be part of it," the young man said. "It's a shame Yoren and his recruits have been attacked, especially now that we need them so much." He turned to his brother "Grenn, would you look for some steward to find the boy somewhere to sleep?"

"Sure, Pyp. Do you think they'll be awake?"

"It's been hours since midnight. _I_ am not awake, Grenn! You wake them up."

Grenn took Arya to the room of one of his brothers who belonged to the order of the stewards. He was the fattest boy Arya had ever seen. He told her his name was Samwell, but he preferred to be called Sam. She told him her name was Gendry. He welcomed her to the Night's Watch and took her to a room she would have to share with 2 other men who were also recruits in training like her. Before leaving her there, he asked her curiously, "Gendry, I can see you are already dressed in black. May I know where you got those clothes from?"

"They gave them to me at Eastwach. I got there first, but I wanted to go to Castle Black, so I left and walked until I got here."

"And is there any reason why you prefer Castle Black to Eastwach?" He asked her, intrigued by her answer. Arya bit her lip, trying to make up something, and he, worried about her silence, started apologizing. "Please pardon me, Gendry. It was not my intention to bother you with my questions. If you don't want to answer, there is no reason why you should."

Arya decided she could probably trust that kind and shy boy, at least a little. She told him part of the truth.

"I didn't come to the Wall only looking for food and shelter, but also for my family. The war has taken both my parents and all of my brothers, save one. He is in the Night's Watch, and he lives in Castle Black. I came here for him."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Sam said, and he sounded sincere. "Who is your brother, Gendry? I can take you with him, so you can tell him you are here."

"No!" Arya hastened to reply. "He mustn't find out that I am here. Not yet. Not until I say my vows and become a man of the Night's Watch."

"But why not? If you have journeyed from King's Landing to find him, why not tell him?"

"He is my older brother, and if he found out that I'm here, he would not let me take my vows. He'd say I'm too young, only a child, and that the Night's Watch is too dangerous for me." It wasn't a lie: if Jon discovered her intentions, it was true that he wouldn't let her join the Watch, because she was too young and, more important, because she was a girl. "Sam, swear on your life that you won't tell him," she asked him, looking intently to his eyes.

"Even if I wanted to tell him, I wouldn't be able to, because you haven't told me his name," he said, smiling. "But I swear to you that, if you decided to tell me, I would keep the secret with my life. I swear it, if you want, on the Old Gods and the New."

"I believe you, Sam," Arya said, satisfied with his answer. "But for the time being, I'd like to keep my brother's identity secret."

"As you wish, Gendry. Well, I think it's past time we went to bed. You'll have to wake up early for your training, so you'd best get some sleep. Good luck!"

"Thank you, Sam," she answered, getting into her new room and lying down as silently as possible to avoid waking the men who were sleeping.

She woke up when the young men who had slept with her got up to get dressed. She waited until they were ready and followed them. When they asked who she was, she introduced herself as Gendry, and they introduced themselves too: they were called Satin and Hareth. They went together to the common hall to have breakfast and she realized that she was very hungry, as she had hardly eaten anything in her way from Eastwatch.

They sat at a table and the young men told Arya about the Night's Watch, and they also talked about themselves and their lives before going to the Wall. Satin had been born in a brothel, and Hareth in Mole's Town. When they asked her, she said she came from Flea Bottom. She had lived there for some days, in the streets, so it was not a difficult lie to maintain.

Then they spoke about their master-at-arms, Iron Emmett. They told her he was a strong man and a very skilled swordsman. He was also kind and a good trainer, they said. They also told her about the other recruits that were training like them to join the Night's Watch. She was surprised to learn that some of them were wildlings. That was probably the first time there were wildlings in the Watch, Satin said, and they owed it to their new Lord Commander. From that moment on, the conversation focused on said Lord Commander, who was, because of his actions in Lord Mormont's Great Ranging, his performance at the Battle of the Wall, and the fact that he was probably the youngest Lord Commander of the Night's Watch in the entire history, greatly admired by the recruits.

"I fought by his side when a group of wildlings attacked the Wall. He was hurt and could hardly walk, but he fought impressively nonetheless. He shot many wildlings with his crossbow. But he didn't want to kill them. He doesn't agree with our never-ending war with them. He says we have a real enemy in common and that instead of killing each other, we men should join together to defeat the Others. I agree with Jon Snow. The wildlings are only people, just like us," Satin said, both proud and excited.

"It's Jon _Stark_ now, Satin," Hareth corrected him. But Arya had stopped paying attention to the conversation.

She was surprised and speechless when she learned that Jon was Lord Commander. But she couldn't let Satin and Hareth notice that she knew him. She thought then of a good way of changing the subject slightly, and she asked Satin if he really believed in such things as the Others. He seemed to be a grown man, old enough not to believe in those foolish stories for children. Hareth answered for him, with a somber expression.

"The Others are real. Not even the men of the Night's Watch believed it at the beginning, but it's the truth. Some of them have now seen it with their own eyes. The white walkers killed many of them, and the wildlings were compelled to face the Watch in a desperate battle to escape them and take shelter behind the Wall. You can ask Iron Emmett during our training session, if you don't believe us. He hasn't seen them, but he knows as we do that they are real, and he won't lie to you."

Arya decided that they were making fun of her, so she didn't ask anything else about it. Frowning, she finished her breakfast without saying another word to them.

She made sure her sword was sheathed and hidden under her clothes, because she couldn't let anybody see it and ask her where she had got it from, and followed the others to the armory, where each of them picked an armor of their size and a tourney sword. Arya picked a helmet too, to conceal her face in case Jon went to the practice yard to watch them. In the yard he found 3 other men, who were also recruits. Soon after came the master-at-arms, and he greeted them all before starting the practice session. Satin introduced her to the other recruits and to Emmett as "Gendry".

It was easy for Arya to defeat most of them. They didn't know how to fight, and the only advantage they had over her was their strength, which they wouldn't use to avoid hurting her (no decent man would ever hurt a child.)

"Gendry, I see you've got some skill with the sword. You don't fight with the traditional style I was thought, but you seem to know how to fight. Have you ever had fighting lessons before?" The master-at-arms asked, intrigued.

"Sort of. My father taught me. He came from Braavos, and he trained me in the Water Dancer's style," Arya said, because she knew the water dancers came from Braavos.

She asked him how much time he thought she would have to wait to say her vows. He answered he wasn't quite certain, but at her insistence, he let out that she would be ready in 2 or 3 months.

During the class, Emmett looked at her especially. He would probably have preferred to see the new boy's face, but he didn't ask for it. After they had lunch, the First Steward Bowen Marsh assigned a task to each of them. Arya was charged with cleaning the stables. It was not a pleasant work, but it was tolerable. When the day was over, Arya went to bed happily, hoping that for once her plans would work.


	6. Rickon II

**Rickon**

He had had many weird dreams, in which he was his direwolf Shaggydog and ran through the woods. He had grown used to them, but this time it was different. In this particular dream, he came across a massive wall made of ice. It was the Wall; Rickon was sure of that. And there, just by the Wall, was a big castle surrounded by 2 walls made of stone, and he recognized it immediately as Winterfell, the place that once had been home to him. In his dream it was not burned and destroyed, as he had seen it when he had left. It was just as it had been before Robb went to war, a very long time ago. Rickon ran to it as fast as he could, fearing that it would fade and vanish if he didn't get there in time. As he got nearer he could see that there were people there, waiting for him. There was a tall auburn-haired woman with deep blue eyes calling to him, and a young lady that looked very much like her was standing by her side, waving her hand delicately to him and welcoming him home. There was another child there, but this one had brown hair and grey eyes, and Rickon wasn't sure if it was a boy or a girl. Last of all he found his brother Bran, smiling to him from his saddle, because he was mounted on Dancer.

Rickon was almost there, with his family, when everything vanished before his very eyes and the sunlight brought him back to Osha's home in the village of Skagos. When he woke up, though, he didn't forget his dream, and the fierce determination to see Winterfell again that he had felt in his dream remained.

"Osha, I have seen Winterfell. It has been repaired, and it's not burnt anymore. It's by the Wall, now," he informed her that morning. "All my family is there. We have to go!"

"How could a castle like Winterfell be moved all the way to the Wall? It was just a dream."

"But sometimes dreams are true! Like when Bran and I dreamed that our father was in the crypts. Please, we have to go to the Wall!"

"Calm down, Rickon! The Wall is a dangerous place, and you are fine here, where nobody knows who you are. Someday we'll go to the Wall, when it's safer. When the war is over and the Others withdraw. But for now, we'll stay in Skagos."

Osha wasn't moved by Rickon's tantrums and rants, but the other people in the village got panicked when Shaggy started snarling and biting the tents madly. One of the men decided to shoot a poisoned arrow at it. It was a poison that could kill a man, but a direwolf it would only leave unconscious for a few hours. With that, Rickon's anger increased even more, and he ran into the woods, away from everybody.

In Winterfell, escaping like this would have caused his family and his brother's guards to look for him throughout the castle and the nearby woods. In Skagos's village, however, escaping to the woods was a usual behavior for children and young people who were facing complicated situations, and who wanted to be alone for some time, so only Rickon's closest friends were likely to be worried about him.

He walked until he found the weirwoods of the forest. There were three of them, and they were all together. He sat in front of them, but he didn't pray. After being there for some time, listening to the sound the branches and leaves made as the wind moved them constantly, he calmed down a little. It was then that he heard the footsteps behind him. He looked backwards to see who it was and found Osha, Keit and Lyra standing there, looking at him.

Silently, Lyra approached him and knelt beside him. Keit asked him if he was feeling well, and he nodded without looking at him. Osha preferred not to speak, probably to prevent him from getting angry and running away once more. She whispered something that he couldn't here and then came back to the town, followed by Keit, so Lyra was the only one who stayed with the boy.

"What happened?" Lyra asked Rickon when Osha had left.

"What do you mean, what happened?" Rickon asked his friend.

"I mean in your dream. If you can tell me why you think that you should go to the Wall, maybe I can talk about it with Osha and Keylie, and convince them to let you go. No offense, but you're still a boy, and nobody will listen to you if they think you're only being willful. I am not a grown up, either, but I'm older than you, and they take me more seriously, because I am quiet and don't throw tantrums. Besides, I also had a dream, and it was about you. I think it had something to do with yours. So, do you want me to help you?"

That surprised Rickon and lifted his spirits. He told her everything he had seen in his dream, but it didn't make much sense. Still, Lyra said she would try to persuade them. She held his hand and asked him if he didn't want to start back. He got up and helped her to stand up too, and then they walked back to the village, holding hands. In the way, Lyra asked Rickon about the games the westerosi kids played, and he happily described her all the ones he had learned. They were still chattering excitedly when they finally got to the village, and bumped into Keylie, Osha, Keit, Deiro and Wegz (the boys and Lyra's father) sitting on the ground, waiting for them.

"Rickon, do you mean to steal my sister?" Deiro asked, teasingly.

Rickon's cheeks turned red with embarrassment, and Lyra gave his little brother a good slap.

"Hey, don't fight! If you keep behaving like this, I'll send you home and won't let you out for the rest of the day," Wegz threatened his children.

"I'm sorry, dad," the girl apologized. "But it bothers me when Deiro says those things. And if Rickon wanted to steal me, it wouldn't be Deiro's problem, unless I said so."

"You're right, Lyra. Deiro, apologize to your sister."

The boy, reluctant, did as he was bid, and the fight was soon forgotten. They shared some deer's meat and they chattered as if nothing had happened. But Lyra didn't forget to help Rickon with his plan to go to the Wall. As soon as they finished eating, she asked Keylie and Osha some time to speak privately.

That day went by without any other problem for Rickon, who spent most of the afternoon petting his wolf, which didn't wake up until it started to get dark. Before he went to sleep, however, Osha spoke with him.

"I had a talk with my mother and Lyra about your dream, and your wish to go to the Wall," she told him. "We decided that we're going to take you there, but not yet. Lyra had another dream, about a ship with an onion drawn on its sails. When it comes, we'll know they're waiting for you in the Wall, and then we'll take you there. It won't be long now. It may happen before winter starts, or maybe at the very beginning of it. In the meanwhile, however, we're staying here."

Rickon accepted that decision, and his last thoughts before he fell asleep that night were of his family. He knew he wouldn't see his father again, but he would find all the others at the Wall. His sisters, of whom he only remembered their names, would be there. Rickon also hoped to see his mother, that gentle auburn haired woman who had held him in her arms and sang lullabies to him when he was very little, and Robb, the eldest brother he had admired so much. But the one he wished to see the most was Bran, the only one he could altogether remember. He had been through the same as Rickon. He had been left behind and he had seen how their home was destroyed. But he had always taken care of him and stood by his side until the end, when Luwin decided to separate them. Rickon thought there was someone else, somebody in his family that he had forgotten, but however much he tried, he couldn't remember. Sleep came before the memory.

 **Author note:** I hope I didn't bore you with all that dreaming and practically no interaction. That is over now, I promise. Now is when things start getting interesting!

SilvasPrickle: Thank you very much for your insightful review! I think I never considered writing Jon's speech partly because I thought it would be too hard for me to make a convincing speech while keeping him on character (it's not impossible, but this was my first fic, so I didn't have the experience or the confidence to do it.) I think I am ready to try now, though, so I will see if I can find the words he could say. As for Arya, I don't think Sam suspects, because he has no reason to think that Arya might be a girl. He can relate her to Jon and wonder if she's his brother, but then he'd remember that Robb's dead and that Bran's beyond the Wall. He could think she's Rickon, though, if Jon never told him how young he is. Emmett was just amazed by her skills, and also intrigued by the way she doesn't show her face. He thinks she has something to hide, but he's far from guessing the truth.


	7. Jon III

**Jon**

As Commander of the Night's Watch, Jon had many responsibilities and decisions to take, especially now that the Watch was changing somuch due to the deal he had made with Stannis. Jon had noticed that they would need a new maester, because though Aemon was still alive, he was old and blind, and he could use another maester's help. That's why he had sent Sam to the citadel. Jon had expected him to gladden with the news, because his friend loved reading and he would probably be better in Oldtown than in the Wall, but Sam had seemed distressed by Jon's order instead.

He had also sent Gilly with him, because Sam intended to introduce her to his family as his lover, and he baby as his son, to give them a place to live in. But Jon didn't let her take her baby. He told her she should take Mance Rayder's son instead, and say he was hers. The idea was to move the King-Beyond-the-Wall's baby away from Melisandre, keeping him safe from her fires and sacrifices for R'hllor. Gilly had agreed to take the other baby, despite all the pain this decision had caused her, and they had set off.

He had also sent Aemon with them, although his health was frail. The Citadet was warm, and a better place than the Wall to stay during winter. Besides, maybe he knew the maesters, because he was one of them, and he could tell them of the situation and the dangers the Watch must face, getting them to believe him and send help.

Jon was very interested in the new recruits' training. Most of them were commoners, and they had never used a sword in their lives. Only one of them seemed to have had fencing classes before getting to the Wall, according to Iron Emmett, and he was only a boy. Jon was curious about that child who had never taken off his helm in his presence. He wondered if Gendry had a reason to hide his face. Maybe he had a scar he was ashamed of, or he might have had greyscale, he thought. But he never asked him, in order not to embarrass him.

Jon estimated that the new recruits would be ready to say their vows in little more than a month. He was already trying to place each of them in an order. They were 9 men (because, though Gendry was just a 10-year-old boy, they were all men in the Watch.) Most of them seemed to fit in best in the orders of stewards and builders, but those were the ones that had more men. The Night's Watch needed rangers, now that many of them had died or gone missing. They also needed wandering crows, to bring more sworn brothers.

These matters, together with the increasing threat of the Others, and the strains between the wildlings, black brothers and Stannis's men worried Lord Commander Stark. The war in the Seven Kingdoms had ceased to interest him when his brother Robb was murdered, because he had no family left outside the Wall. Save for his sisters, but both of them were missing. The dream he had had about Arya had aroused his hopes to see them again, but he didn't want to delude himself with vain illusions. He was going to fight for Stannis, but only because it was his duty to Westeros.

His days were almost always the same: he broke his fast alone in his chambers, he spent his mornings supervising the men of Castle Black as they performed their different tasks, and he practiced his swordplay and had meetings with Stannis and his loyal bannermen in the evenings. Some of Stannis's knights had gone on a journey through the North to recruit lords for Stannis's cause, and men for the Night's Watch. With some luck, they would be more successful than the last wandering crows.

After one of those meetings with Stannis, in which the king told him about the different letters the northern lords had sent him, he went to the godswood with Ghost to reflect on what had been said in the meeting. Houses Umber and Mormont had declared for Stannis as soon as they learned that Jon had accepted him as his king. They wanted to remain loyal to the Starks, and Jon was the only one left. The Karstarks were on their side too, possibly because they had no other choice. But what Stannis wanted most was White Harbor's loyalty. In order to get it he had sent Lord Davos Seaworth to speak with Lord Manderly. King Stannis was worried because he had received no word from his loyal envoy. If they couldn't get White Harbor, winning the war would be very difficult.

As he rode to the weirwoods of the Old Gods, he wondered how the war would end, and when. Would Stannis win? Would he see Winterfell again? Would everything go back to normal? Would there be peace in the future? Would there be summer children who played snowball fights without being able to imagine a real fight? Or would the Lannisters win? If they did, would there ever be another Stark in Winterfell? Would the war last all winter? And when would be the time to deal with the Others?

Jon knew the gods wouldn't answer him, but he wanted to ask all the same. However, when he got there, he realized that there was someone sitting in front of the trees. He was a boy and he was dressed in black, so Jon supposed he was the new recruit.

The child must have heard his footsteps, because he turned his head to glance at him. Gendry was wearing a hooded cloak and a scarf, so the only feature of his face Jon could see was his eyes, and the hood's shadow made it difficult to see even that. The boy hastened to rise and mutter a greeting to his Lord Commander. Jon wondered if his presence had made the boy anxious, or if he was scared of the direwolf. He asked Gendry if he could sit by his side and pray too, and the child nodded silently. After he sat down, Ghost approached him and started sniffing at Gendry intently. Jon was about to call his wolf to him, but then Gendry started petting Ghost lightly, and the direwolf sat by his side, almost as relaxed and trusting as if it was him touching its fur.

"Ghost is a direwolf, Gendry. They are dangerous animals. Aren't you afraid?" Jon asked him frowning, surprised at his wolf unusual behavior and the recruit's lack of fear. The boy just shrugged, as if he didn't know what to answer.

"Do you believe in the Old Gods, Gendry?" Jon was curious about the reason why the boy had gone to the godswood, and he thought that would be a good explanation.

"Yes, I do. But they never listen to me" he answered, with a hint of sadness.

Now it was Jon who didn't know what to say. They were silent for some time, until Gendry decided to explain himself.

"I was actually born in the North, but my family moved to King's Landing after the war started. That's why I believe in the Old Gods. But if they listened to the prayers, they wouldn't let a 10-year-old boy be orphaned and homeless. Do they listen to you?" Gendry asked.

"I don't know. My father was executed as a traitor, even though I know that the only dishonorable thing he did in his life was bringing me to the world. My older brother died betrayed, while he was trying to avenge our father and free our sisters. A man who had grown up with us murdered our little brothers and took our castle. I know nothing about my sisters, and they are probably dead too. I don't know why the gods let the innocent die, while the guilty traitors live."

"Traitors die too, Jon. All men must die." Jon nodded, surprised by the solemnity with which the boy said such a baleful sentence.

"Jon, do you think there could be women in the Night's Watch?" the boy asked.

"Women?" Jon was puzzled. There had never been women in the Night's Watch.

"Yes. The wildlings let their women fight and learn to defend themselves. Why doesn't the Watch accept women? A strong woman could easily defeat the old and cripple that now make the Night's Watch, and the Watch needs strength, if we're going to fight with the white walkers." Gendry had started talking calmly, but now she sped up his speech, desperate to convince Jon. "You are the Lord Commander, you made the Night's Watch intervene in Westeros's wars, and you even allowed the men of the Watch to get married, you can surely change this too…"

"I suppose I can, but I think we've had too many changes already. I don't need to give my sworn brothers more reasons to think I'm against everything the Night's Watch stands for."

Gendry quit trying to convince him and he left soon after that, leaving Jon alone with Ghost. He wondered how the Watch would be if it accepted women, and what kind of women would join it. Maybe some wildling spearwives, and many beggars looking for food and a place to sleep in, and maybe one or two young girls eager to fight and who refused to be "ladies". He thought of Arya, and the thought brought a warm smile to his face.

He stayed there for a time, alone and in silence, looking at the weirwoods, whose red leaves had started to fall months before and were now almost bared. He asked the gods if he would ever see Arya again. He had had no word of her since their father had been arrested, and she was probably dead. However, there was no way he could know it for sure, and the dream he had had that night made him wonder even more about it. If she had survived, she was a lost and orphan 11-year-old girl who had nowhere to go.

"Please, if Arya is still alive, send her to me. Remind her that she has in the Wall a brother who loves her, and who would do everything he can to keep her safe," he prayed.

A sudden gust shook the weirwood branches, and some leaves fell off. One of them touched down beside him, just where Gendry had been seated minutes before. Jon shivered, suddenly noticing how cold and dark it had gotten. He supposed that the blow might be the gods' answer, telling him they had heard him. But he felt stupid, talking to the trees, and trying to find an answer where there was none. Frustrated, he rose and started the way back to Castle Black.

 **Author Note:** Yes, I am aware of the fact that some of you (Starkiss, I'm looking at you) will be frustrated and even angry at me because of this chapter. You wanted Jon to recognize Arya and help her out of the mess she's brought herself into, and I did just the opposite. You might even think it ridiculous that Jon had her in front of him and didn't know her, but before you start complaining I'd like to explain it. If she tries to be quiet, hides her face and gives Jon no reason to suspect she is not who she claims to be, she could go unnoticed for some time. After all, in _A Game of Thrones_ she had trouble proving that she was Arya Stark (Tommen, Myrcella and the Lannister guards didn't recognize her once) and then in _A Storm of Swords_ , when she revealed her identity to Harwin, who'd been her father's man and known her since she was a baby. Of course, Jon knows her better than any of them, but he hasn't seen her for years and has no reasons to expect her to come to him disguised as a boy.

So, I hope it wasn't complete crack to you and that it won't put you off reading any further.


	8. Arya III

**Arya**

Many things had happened in a very short time, but by now, Arya was used to changes and unexpected events. Jon had executed a sworn brother for insubordination, and Melisandre, Stannis's red priestess, had had Mance Rayder, the king of the wildlings, burnt alive. However, the free folk, as the wildlings called themselves, had been allowed south of the Wall, after they accepted Stannis as their king. Most of them now worked for the Watch, and some even trained with Arya to join it. There were wildling women in the Wall too, but none of them would be a member of the Watch.

Arya had been told that the Night's Watch took no part in the wars of Westeros, so she didn't understand why they had made an alliance with this king. She had also been told that the enemy of the Watch was the wildlings, but everything around her seemed to prove otherwise. Now that she had heard so many grown men say it, she had to admit that the Others really existed, and it wasn't just something the recruits had said to make fun of her.

Now Stannis had left, with most of his men. He had left Melisandre, and some guards and servants to serve her, but all the others had gone with him, to recruit the mountain clans for his cause, according to what he had heard the knights say before they set off.

The day after they had left, Iron Emmett told the recruits "Lord Commander Stark has announced that you are ready to swear your oaths. Each of you will be assigned to an order." He proceeded to tell them who was in which order and, to Arya's surprise, hers was the Rangers.

To say their oaths they should go beyond the Wall, where were the weirwoods that would witness their vows. Their Lord Commander would go with them. Arya told herself that she would reveal herself to Jon the day after that, once she was a "sworn brother of the Night's Watch." He couldn't send her away after that, she thought.

When they got to the weirwoods, they noticed that some wildlings, including a giant, were occupying the place. Arya regarded the giant with amazement, as it was the first time she saw one. A fight was about to break out, but Leathers, an ex-wildling who had taken the black, spoke to the wildlings in the Old Tongue, and somehow managed to calm them down.

After sorting that problem, the recruits knelt before the old gods and said the new oath. It was almost the same as the old one, but instead of swearing not to get married, have children or hold lands, it now said "I swear to put my wife, my children and my lands (if I had any) to the service of the Night's Watch."

When they had finished saying the words, the Lord Commander said "rise now as men of the Night's Watch." And Arya rose with the others, being the only one who knew that she could never be a man of the Night's Watch. When they went back, the wildlings went to the Wall with them. From then on, the ones who were healthy enough would serve the Watch too. Arya wondered what would the other sworn brothers say when they saw the giant.

By the time they got to Castle Black the sun had long since started going down. After taking the horses to the stables, they got in to find something warm to eat. They were free for the rest of the evening, and Arya spent it watching the sworn brothers in their training and tasks, while she tried to imagine how would be the moment to tell her brother who she was. What would he do? Would he get angry at her? Would he shout at her and scold her for what she did? Or would he be happy about it? Would he ruffle her hair? Would he call her "little sister"? Would he try to keep her identity secret? Or would he proudly introduce her to his sworn brothers as the first Woman of the Night's Watch?

When they had dinner she sat with the other new sworn brothers (except for Leathers, who had sat with the wildlings and the giant in order to tell them in the Old Tongue of what had happened lately at the Wall.) They talked excitedly about what awaited them as sworn brothers of the Night's Watch. Satin was a steward, and he was satisfied with the order he had been assigned to. Most of the important tasks in the Wall were carried out by that order. Hareth had been named a builder, and he also liked his future job. Arron had been selected for the stewards, and his twin Emrik for the rangers. Jax would also be a ranger. He said he was surprised that a boy as young as Gendry had been chosen for that order, even with his abilities, but that surely he would be a strong man and worthy of his order in the future. Arya just nodded, wondering if a strong woman could be considered worthy of the rangers.

That night they were given new rooms, so each of them had his own. And the next morning she decided to carry out her plan. Instead of going to have breakfast in the common hall, she picked her sword Needle and walked to the Lord Commander's chambers. When she knocked the door she was received by Dolorous Edd, his personal steward.

"Good morning, Gendry. If there are such things as good mornings. I wouldn't know, as I haven't had any. Are you looking for Lord Stark?"

It was strange to hear Jon be called that. Arya had only heard her father be called that way. Besides, Jon had always been a Snow, even though he was her favorite brother.

"Yes, I'd like to talk to him. Would you tell him I'm waiting without?"

"At once" he said, and went in to announce her.

Arya found herself thinking that, up to now, her plans had always gone wrong. Since the day in which she was going to leave King's Landing, and was interrupted by Lannister guardsmen in her last dancing lesson. Or when Yoren told her he would take her back to Winterfell. And when she had started her journey to Riverrun, only to be intercepted by the Brotherhood without Banners. And when they had said they'd take her with her mother, and when the Hound made the same promise. Now she had got to Castle Black, but that didn't mean everything would go well. She put her hood on, hiding her face as much as possible.

"Lord Jon said you can come in, Gendry," Tollett said when he came back. He took her to Jon, who was breaking his fast.

"Good morning, Gendry. Is there something you would like to tell me?" Jon seemed surprised by the fact that he'd come to talk to him, and curious about what she was going to say.

"Yes, but I would like to be certain of some things before I tell you. Is it true that once you say your vows you're a man of the Night's Watch forever, no matter who you have been or what you have done before?" Jon took his time before he answered, probably wondering where she wanted to get to with such an obvious question.

"Sit down, Gendry." Jon pointed the chair that was in front of him, and Arya sat down. "When a man (or boy) says his vows, he is part of the Watch forever. It doesn't matter if you committed crimes before you got to the Wall, or if you were a whore's son. You said it in your oath: 'for this night, and all the nights to come.' Leaving it is called desertion, and the punishment for that is death. Have I answered your question?"

"More or less, "she answered. "My case is a bit different to those. I have committed crimes and murdered men who attacked me, but that's not what I'm worried about. My problem is what I am, and will never be able to change."

That confounded Jon, who frowned and asked her "Will you tell me what it is, or do I have to guess?" Arya almost laughed at his impatience, but she bit her lip and restrained herself.

"I'll tell you. I lied to all of the Night's Watch from the beginning. I'm not who I said I was. The only truth I told is that I was born in the North and that I have no parents. I lived in King's Landing for a time, where Yoren found me living on the streets, and he promised to take me home. I traveled with him, claiming to be an orphan boy called Arry, as he told me to do. But then some Lannister knights attacked us on our way, and he died before he could fulfill his promise. But the problem is not what happened to me as Arry, or with the names I assumed after that. The problem is that before that I was a girl. And I'm a girl still, because I can't change that." Jon's face turned abruptly from bewilderment to recognition and he opened his mouth to speak, but Arya went on.

"Before I left home I had an older brother who believed in me. He gave me a sword, and he told me to 'stick them with the pointy end.' And so I did. And I practiced as often as I could. And when I was alone and lost, I tried to find a way to come back to him. Now that I have found him, I just hope he still believes in me, as he did when he gave me this sword." When Arya said that, she pulled off her hood and handed Needle to Jon.

Jon stayed silent, trying to decide how to react. In the end he approached her and hugged her feelingly. He muffled her hair and asked, in a voice that gave her the impression that he was about to cry, "little sister, what have you done?" and he kissed her cheeks. She didn't answer, because she didn't understand his question. But then he whispered in her ear "Arya, you don't know how much I've missed you!" and she hugged him back and told him she had also missed him very much. She felt tears running down her cheeks, but she didn't know why.

When they broke their embrace, he told her he didn't think that letting her stay in the Night's Watch was a good idea. He promised he would think what to do about it, but in the meanwhile, he asked her to let them call her Gendry.

Having said that, he called Dolorous Edd and asked him to bring some food for "Gendry", and they had breakfast together as they hadn't had for years. She spoke about what she had been doing during the last 2 years, quickly but without omitting anything important, and Jon told her how he had risen to Lord Commander. The 2 of them had been through a lot, and they would be through much more in the future. When they had finished, Jon said that even though he would love to have her near him, it would be better if they acted as if they barely knew each other, in order not to arise suspicions.

Arya left Jon's room, happier than she had been in a long time, and she went up atop the Wall, because it was her watch shift. If she was lucky, she would be the first Sworn Sister of the Night's Watch. And if not, Jon would surely find a place for her in the Wall. He wouldn't deny her that.

 **Author Note:** The only thing I can say here is that I hope this chapter didn't turn you off reading any further. I have no convincing excuses for the poor way in which I wrote their reunion, really. I promise you, however, that I will solve the problem of Arya's fate in my next Jon chapter.


	9. Rickon III

**Rickon**

He had gotten used to his new home, and he felt almost as if he had been born there. He barely remembered what his life had been like before he got to Skagos. That was his home, and Osha was his mother. He could even call her "mum", because she had told everyone that he was her son. He had learned almost everything a child of the free folk needed to know. He spoke in the Old Tongue almost perfectly, he could use a spear (not very well, of course, but more than acceptably for a 5-year-old boy,) he played the same games that the other children played and knew by hard the legends and stories that they told around the fire at dusk.

Shaggydog was also happy in the village. Sometimes he went out to hunt in the nearby woods, but Rickon knew that he would always come back. He could see him at night, when he got into it in his dreams. Once he had told his mother and grandmother (Osha and Keyllie) about his wolf dreams. Far from seeming surprised, they had reacted as if they already knew it.

"You're a skinchanger, Rickon. You can get into your wolf's skin. If you focused on it, you could do it whenever you wanted, and not only in your sleep," his grandmother had told him. From that moment on, Rickon had tried to enter his wolf's skin intentionally. Many days went by before he could do it, but from that first time on it was easier every time.

There he was then, running around the village in Shaggy's skin, when he found 2 strangers approaching him. They were a grown, almost old man with brown hair and a beard that was part brown and part grey and a young one with dark brown hair and dark eyes. They stopped as soon as they saw Shaggydog, probably fearing an attack. The wolf saw they were armed, and that scared and angered it. Did they want to attack his house? Kill his family? He decided not to allow these men to get to the village. But then the oldest one spoke.

"This must be Rickon's wolf. The boy must be in that village, then. If the direwolf doesn't kill us, we'll find him today." The young one didn't say anything; maybe he was too terrified to speak.

Shaggydog then got ready to attack those men who meant to attack Rickon. It was a short and not very difficult fight. Shaggydog took some shallow wounds in his back where they stuck it with their swords, but he could leave his 2 opponents unconscious. He could have killed them or leave them right there, but Rickon preferred to take them to the village, to see why they were looking for him, and who they were. So he told the wolf to drag them to his mother's house.

"Who are them, Rickon?" Osha asked, a little upset, looking at the bloody men that were lying on the ground. "Was it Shaggydog who attacked them?"

"We were both of us. I was in his skin when it happened. I don't know who they are, but they're looking for me. I brought them so they can tell us who they are when they wake up."

"Are you sure they were looking for you?" Osha seemed worried.

"Yes. They said my name, and that Shaggy was my direwolf. And they were looking for me."

Osha stared silently at him, deciding what to do with that situation. "Go and play with the other kids, Rickon," she resolved with a sigh in the end. "My mother will see to them. Don't worry."

"But mum, what if there are more people looking for me? What if they find out where I am? I don't want to go away from home! I don't want to leave the village!" He felt tears running down his cheeks while he said that. He was suddenly scared and angry, facing the possibility of losing everything again, and being unable to do anything about it. He couldn't hold back his tears, but he also didn't want to be seen crying like a baby, so he ran to the woods to be alone for some time.

He picked a big branch that had fallen to the ground and started hitting a tree with it, as if this way he could solve anything. He couldn't, but at least it helped him stop crying, and it tired him out enough to make him sit down for a minute and calm down. When he stopped panting and he could no longer hear his heart's fast and hard beats, he started walking towards the weirwoods. Osha had told him that they could see and hear, and that sometimes they answered to what people said to them. He had never heard them, but he wanted to try. Besides, he didn't want to come back home yet, where the wounded men would be waiting for him.

But when he found the weirwoods, he saw that he didn't have them all for himself. His friends were already there. Rickon wondered why they were praying, but he soon remembered that their father had recently had an accident in a hunting party. They were surely praying for his recovery. But that didn't change the fact that he wanted to be alone.

When she saw him, Lyra told his brother "I think it was enough prayer for today. Come, Deiro. Let's go back."

"But I don't want to…" the boy started to complain.

"Only praying is no good," she cut him off. "We should go with father, and see if he needs something. We must look after him and be by his side too. Come"

She turned to leave, and her brother followed her. Keit also rose to his feet and started to follow, but she asked him to stay a little more. Lyra whispered something in his ear before she left, and he nodded and said goodbye to his siblings. Rickon followed Lyra with his gaze while she walked away, and he saw that she turned her face and looked back at him, as if she wanted to stay too, to ask him what had happened to him, and to comfort him.

If he wasn't so angry and so scared, he would be annoyed by the secret they didn't let him hear, and he would demand them to tell him about it. But at that moment, the only thing he wanted to listen to was the silence, and the leaves moving with the wind. Keit granted him that for many minutes, during which they sat next to each other without saying a word.

"What happened," Keit asked Rickon in the end.

"Some men I don't know are looking for me."

"And why's that?" he asked, bewildered.

"I don't know," he truthfully answered. "I don't know why they killed my family. I don't know why they destroyed my house. And now that I've run away, I don't know who are looking for me, and what for."

"I don't understand. Isn't Osha your mother? What family are you talking about? What house?"

"House Stark, of Winterfell. I'm not really Osha's son. But it doesn't matter. She is the closest thing to a mother that I have, and you to a family. I don't want to be forced to move away from here. To leave the village so they will not find me." After he said that he broke off, and started to sob.

"Don't cry. You won't have to go, you'll see. We are your family, no matter who you were before. If they want to kill you, we'll protect you. And if you must leave, you won't go alone. I'll go with you, with Lyra and Osha. For as long as we're alive, Rickon, you won't lose us." Keit hugged Rickon then, and the child cried on his shoulder for a short while. Soon, however, he calmed down, stopped sobbing and wiped his tears away from his face, ashamed for his babyish behavior.

When they got back to the village, Keit accompanied Rickon home. There they found Osha, who was talking outside with Deiro and Lyra. The door was closed. Osha explained that her mother had preferred to be alone while she questioned the strangers. They sat down then, to wait until Keyllie came out.

"Osha, Rickon, please come in," she told them when she appeared.

Rickon and Osha went in behind Keyllie, and they sat on wooden chairs that surrounded the only table in the house, as the old woman told them to do. The eldest man was also sitting at the table.

"Rickon, this man says he's called ser Davos Seaworth. Have you ever heard of him?" Keyllie asked him. Rickon shook his head.

"He claims to serve King Stannis Baratheon as his Hand of the King. He told me he spoke with a man called Lord Wyman Manderly to get his loyalty for Stannis, and that he sent him to look for you in return for his support. The North wants to have a Stark in Winterfell again, Davos says."

Rickon thought about what she said. He knew about House Manderly, and he had met Lord Wyman. He also knew about King Stannis, who had been the brother of King Robert Baratheon. Probably this Lord Davos was telling the truth, he thought. But still, Rickon didn't like it.

"I don't want to come back to Winterfell. It's destroyed, and my family doesn't live there anymore. This is my home now. If you want a Stark in Winterfell, you should tell my brother Robb."

"Child, your brother's been killed. He won't be able to go back to Winterfell." This time it was Davos himself who spoke, and he seemed sad to have to tell him that.

Rickon was sad too, because Robb was one of the few siblings he actually remembered, and now he had lost him forever. But this time he could stop his tears from falling, and answer naturally and maturely in spite of that.

"Then you should go and look for Bran. He's older than me. It's Bran who should be Lord of Winterfell."

"I'd gladly look for your brother, Rickon. But I don't know where he is. Lord Manderly could tell me you were in Skagos, but the only thing he knew about Brandon was that he had escaped from Theon Greyjoy."

"What do you want to do with me, Lord Davos?" Rickon asked then.

"I only want to take you to White Harbor so the Manderlys can see you, and then to the Wall, with my King and with your brother. There Stannis will bid you to kneel before him, and he'll keep you safe for the rest of the war in return. And when he conquers Winterfell, he'll give it back to you, so that there is a Lord Stark in Winterfell once more," Lord Davos assured.

The words that got Rickon's attention the most were "to the Wall… with your brother." This man claimed he didn't know where Bran was, but he seemed to believe he was at the Wall. He had been waiting for the man in Lyra's dream for weeks, and in the end he had almost forgotten him. But now that Lord Davos had said that, he suddenly remembered it. So he asked Davos whether he had a ship with an onion drawn in its sails. He admitted that he didn't but that it was the sigil of his House, of which he himself was the founder. That answer was enough for Rickon to know for sure that he was before the man of his friend's dream.

"I'll only agree to go with you if my family can also come. I want Osha, my mother, to go along with me. And I want my brother Keit to come with me as well. And Lyra, if she wants to come, too," Rickon decided at last.

"You can take whoever you want, Lord Stark," said Davos, smiling as someone who has just finished a long and hard mission.

 **Author note:** I have noticed in your comments that there is a general worry about the frequency of my chapters. I understand that perfectly: it is really frustrating when somebody starts publishing a story and then suddenly stops updating, leaving it unfinished. However, with this fic, you have nothing to fear. I have finished writing it long ago; the only thing I'm doing now is edit it chapter by chapter, correcting some spelling, grammar and style mistakes here and there. So, if there is one thing I can promise you in A Time for Wolves (aside from Starks reunions) that is frequent updates.


	10. Jon IV

**Jon**

The sunlight that came in through the window woke him up. He had barely been able to sleep; the unresolved issues kept him awake. Jon had sent Val in search of Tormund, hoping to get an alliance with the wildlings that had joined him, and he was still waiting for her return. But while he tried to unite 2 peoples who had been enemies for centuries, his sworn brothers looked at him with suspicion. Some of them believed him a deserter, no better than Mance Rayder. Bowen Marsh and Othell Yarwick refused to accept the wildling's work, and made excuses and objections for everything.

Apart from that, there was Melisandre, who never failed to make him uneasy. She had foretold that 3 men he had sent on a ranging would come back dead, and they had. But she had also told him that a girl in grey on a dying horse (Arya) would come to the Wall to seek him and ask him to save her from an unwanted marriage. And that couldn't be true, because Arya was already at the Wall. Dressed in black, pretending to be a man of the Night's Watch, practicing swordplay, making watches and helping with whatever that was necessary, as everybody else. But he hadn't wanted to tell the priestess that yet, so he had had to accept her plan to send Mance Rayder to rescue her, because he had no excuse to refuse.

Arya was good at acting like a boy, but Jon knew it couldn't be like that forever. In a few years she would be a woman grown, and she wouldn't be able to hide that. Probably her breasts had already started to grow, and it wouldn't be long before she bled. But, what could he do with her? He would love to be able to introduce her to everyone as his sister, and name her the First Woman of the Night's Watch. But if bringing wildlings to the Wall had brought problems and disagreements, allowing a woman to be a sworn sister of the Night's Watch would trigger even more rejection and disapproval from his sworn brothers. Besides, the only woman who was known to have been part of the Night's Watch was Danny Flint, the Brave. And Jon would rather be taken by the Others than let his little sister have the same fate as that girl.

If Stannis found out about Arya's identity, he would insist in marrying her to one of his bannermen or loyal knights. And that was exactly the kind of life that Arya had rejected since Jon remembered: the one of a highborn lady who spoke nothing but courtesies and was wife to the important lord of a castle. The better option Jon could think of was to let her stay at the Wall, but as the spearwives did: working for the Watch, but without being part of it.

Apart from Arya's issue, Jon had to prepare to welcome Queen Selyse, who would arrive at Castle Black the following day. He had never seen the queen, but for what he had heard of her he wasn't especially thrilled to meet her.

In all of that Jon thought while he broke his fast (buttered bread, fruits and water) alone in his room. They were already eating winter rations, yet Bowen Marsh kept saying that they would run out of food before spring came.

He decided to end with Arya's problem that very day. It was what could be done more quickly. He asked Dolorous Edd to find "Gendry" and the steward obeyed, somewhat curious about his Commander's interest in the little sworn brother.

"Here is Gendry, Lord Snow," Tollett said when he came back. Even though Jon was now a Stark, his friends kept calling him that, sometimes. Those for whom Jon was always the same, despite his titles.

"Thank you, Edd. You may leave. Come in, Gendry."

"Jon, how are you?" Arya greeted him.

"I'm fine, Arya. Thank you for asking. Listen, we have to do something before they find out who you are. I've been thinking that you can reveal your identity and tell everybody that from now on you'll live in Castle Black, but without being part of the Watch. That's the best choice I can think of."

"Can't I be your sworn sister?" That question made him smile.

"You'll always be my sister. And if ever things in the Wall calm down, I'll remind everyone that you swore and worked the same as them. But for now, the best will be that you stop wearing black. That will be the only difference, I promise."

"I will tell them myself. I don't want them to think that you knew it from the beginning. I don't even have to tell them that I'm your sister. I've already used other names before. I can say I'm called Weasel, or Nan. That way nobody will think I'm important, and they won't use me to hurt you."

Jon couldn't help feeling sad for his little sister. She had been through so much that she had been forced to change her identity more than once, and she was willing to do it again to protect him, who was her elder brother. Jon knew everything would be much easier if Melisandre thought that she was a commoner, but he was not willing to deny his sister, now that he had her with him.

"I'd prefer you to be my little sister. Arya Stark, of Winterfell." He ruffled her hair, making her laugh.

"Fine," she accepted, laughing. "But don't even think that I'll behave like a little lady and take up needlework."

"You won't have conventional lessons if you don't want to, but I guess you'll still want to use your Needle."

"Yes. But, isn't it too small for me now?"

"It may be. But you have all of Castle Black's weapons to choose from. Surely you can find one that'll do. But we were talking about your revelation," Jon went back to the serious tone. "I'd like it to happen before the queen's arrival, so that she can say nothing about it. That would be this very night. Do you dare?"

"Of course I do! It doesn't scare me. And if I was afraid, I'd do it all the same, because fear cuts deeper than swords," she answered proudly.

Jon wondered where Arya had learned that from, but he didn't say anything. She had always been brave, and the change wasn't so big. She was still the girl he knew, only now she was a little older, and had seen terrible things. The same could be said about him.

Jon called Edd to take the trays from their breakfasts away. "Can I tell him? I want to see how he reacts," Arya asked Jon.

"Tell me what?" Edd asked with curiosity.

"Yes, you can. After all, it won't be a secret tomorrow," Jon conceded.

"What I have to tell you is… that I'm a girl!"

"It could be," Edd laughed about Arya's confession. "Now we have wildlings, and even a giant at the Wall. Why not have as well girls in the Night's Watch? But, if truth be told, I have never been lucky with women. Or with anything, truly."

"But I'm a girl for real. I'm Jon's sister: Arya."

Edd looked at Jon, whose expression confirmed what Arya had said. "Do we have a sworn sister?"

"Yes, but not for long. She'll reveal her identity and stop wearing black. She'll stay at the Wall, but not as part of the Watch. Edd, would you bring Pypar, Grenn, Todder, Halder and Clydas to me? I'd like to tell them this now. As far as they know, my little sister is in Winterfell, married to the son of the traitor who killed my brother Robb. And we may need their help to avoid conflicts when we reveal Arya's identity, so they should know it beforehand."

When Edd left, Jon stayed with Arya, and asked her how she was doing as a man of the Watch, to which she answered that she was fine. There was no other place where she would like to be, except maybe Winterfell. But the Winterfell she wanted didn't exist anymore. In the Watch they treated her well (that is, better than in Harrenhal, where they had mistreated her so much that she had wished for her masters to die.) Besides, the Wall was far more exciting than Harrenhal, she said. Here, she could even get to fight. Jon didn't even want to think about the possibility that Arya fought against the Others, but he preferred to leave that discussion for another time.

When his personal steward came back with his friends and with Clydas, Arya revealed herself again, leaving the men confused, but also relieved and happy, because Jon's sister was safe at the Wall, and not a prisoner of her unwanted husband. Jon's friends were a little worried about what the others would say of this, and Clydas pointed out that they'd have to fight against the Boltons in the future, because they were going to claim Winterfell in Arya's name. But Jon was no stranger to negative opinions and false accusations, and fighting the Boltons was something that Stannis was already doing, so he didn't worry about it very much.

After that, Arya went to train, while Jon supervised Marsh's dispositions for the queen's arrival. When he saw that the rooms were already prepared, and that there was enough place in the stables for all the horses Selyse could care to bring, he went to the yard too. He watched his sister, who challenged many men of the Night's Watch and wildlings. The men who could fight defeated her almost effortlessly. But the old, the cripple or inexperienced perished before her, who was quick and unpredictable. She could even defeat some spearwives. She had been practicing for real, Jon knew.

That night, while they had dinner, Arya stood up and asked for everybody's attention. Curious and amused by the idea of hearing a speech from the little sworn brother, they hushed to hear what he had to say. Jon thought he was more anxious than her.

"All of you know who I am. You know that I said it, as all of you have. 'I am the sword in the darkness, I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers and the shield that guards the realms of men.' I am a man of the Night's Watch, then. You know me as Gendry, but that's not my real name. I want to tell you the truth, but I'll only do it if you swear on the honor of each of you that you'll let me stay at the Wall, alive, after you know who I was, and am still."

Jon's hands started to sweat despite the cold, and he could hear his heart beating faster and faster. He could hear many voices, most of them from the black brothers, promising what Arya had asked. When they quieted, she continued.

"I guess that many of you have known Yoren. He found me in King's Landing, living on the streets, after I lost my father. He offered me his protection, and he gave me a new name: 'Arry.' He promised to take me to my home, in the North, and I traveled with him. But he was killed and no one from our group ever made it to Castle Black. From then on, I traveled through many places and under many names, but that is not what matters. What I want to tell you is who I was before I was Arry."

The men were really intrigued at this point. A boy who had traveled through half of Westeros to get to Castle Black, in addition to the mention of Yoren, was something that interested most of them. And the mysterious way in which she had avoided to say her true name had them almost hypnotized. Jon was tense and afraid. He prayed for his sworn brothers to keep to their word, at least this time.

"Before that, brothers, I was only a 9-year-old girl. You heard well: a girl. My name was Arya, of House Stark. Jon is my brother, and to him I went, without telling him, when I had nowhere else to go. Many of you have already seen me working, and I gave you no reasons to suspect that I wasn't a boy. I hope you're true to you words, then, and let me stay here, working by your side, even if I stop wearing black and am no longer of the Night's Watch."

A tense silence fell then, until Pyp dared to say "Welcome to the Wall, Arya Stark." His friends and Clydas echoed him, and soon others followed. Those who didn't simply remained silent.


	11. Alayne

**Alayne**

Maddy and Gretchel, the handmaids who had come with her and her new family from the Eyrie, came into her room. Alayne already had on the dress she would wear that night, so that she wouldn't have to ruin her hairstyle after, to get dressed. She told the handmaidens how she wanted it: with many braids upswept in little buns, and 2 loose locks that fell to the front. They praised her choice and got ready to work, while the young lady looked attentively to her reflection in the mirror.

They had been living in the Gates of the Moon for almost a moon's turn now. She had already adapted to her new home, where she would live during all of the winter. Because, even though her father's plans implied getting her married before the spring, her future husband would come to live with her there, instead of being Alayne the one who moved away. Considering that Harry was heir to the Eyrie, this seemed to make sense, but Alayne didn't like it, because she knew what had to happen for him to come into that inheritance.

If she was the same girl she had been 2 years ago, the thought of meeting Harry would make her blush and sigh with yearning and excitement, and she would be thrilled with the prospect of a marriage with a young and noble knight. But things were different now. She had already been betrothed once, to a young prince with shiny golden hair, and just then, when she thought her dreams were about to come true, her prince had turned into the worst monster she could ever imagine. She had also been married, and her marriage had been a nightmare. The only good thing she could recall from her time as a married lady was that her husband had never forced her to consummate their union. For all that, now she was not the same girl she had been. Even her name was different.

The only thing Alayne felt about the expectation of meeting her new betrothed, then, was insecurity and distrust. The only thing she could do was to hope that he would be a good man, and that he would be kind to her.

In that she thought while the handmaids styled her hair, combing and braiding it into complex and beautiful shapes. She was wearing a light green gown that she found very pretty. In this occasion she didn't need to worry to keep her humble and bastard-like appearance, Petyr had told her, but he had also advised her to keep avoiding the colors of Houses Tully and Arryn. Her choice met those conditions.

She studied her reflection attentively. Her face was beautiful, but it had a sad expression. Alayne forced herself to smile and change it. She remembered being praised for her beauty, her lustrous auburn hair (that she no longer had), her deep blue eyes and her flawless bearing and behavior. Tonight she would appear in the same way as ever, and she would cause the same good impression she had always sought to have in the people she met. If the gods were good, which they seldom seemed to be, everything would go well.

After they finished with her hair she decided to go to the castle's sept. She had to walk quite a while to get there, because it was far from her room, but she had nothing better to do until Lady Waynwood arrived with her sons and her ward. When she got there she knelt before the mother's altar, as she was used to do. She prayed for her betrothed to be a good man, and for him to be gentle to her. She also prayed to the crone, to guide her in her path that seemed to have no way out, and for the plan Petyr had confided her to be carried out without any unpleasant and unexpected events. And she prayed to the father too, asking him to forgive her for the sins she had unintentionally committed: her role in Joffrey's death, her lie about her identity, and her future marriage, at the expense of the first one that was still valid. And after that she thanked the maiden, because after all that had happened, she was still one. But she didn't pray to the warrior, because she didn't believe in knights anymore.

When she had finished, she stayed there for a while, looking at the statues. The mother with her sympathetic and merciful face, the father with his more severe and inflexible expression. The maiden, young, innocent and beautiful, and the warrior, strong and handsome under his shining armor. The crone, stooped over with her twinkling lamp, the strong smith, with his hammer. And the stranger, hidden under his hood. Alayne didn't have a mother who cared for and took pity on her. Her father was Littlfinger, and she couldn't trust him. She would soon be no longer a maiden and her betrothed, the warrior, was a stranger to her. She had never received a crone's counsels or a smith's help. Which god could she trust in, then? The stranger? She didn't want anything with death yet. Or maybe the Old Gods? But that was impossible. Alayne had been brought up by septas, and she only prayed to the Seven. Besides, there were no weirwoods in the Vale.

She stood up, resigned, and started back towards the castle. When she got in, Maddy and Gretchel told her, with some reproach, that her father was already with Lord Royce, Myranda and the guests in the dining hall. She went there, then, as quickly as she could. She took a deep breath, trying to calm down so that they would not see her nervousness, and she got in. They were all sitting around the table, but Petyr rose to greet her, and the others followed him.

"Alayne, my dear daughter, where have you been? We were waiting for you," He said while he approached her to take her to the table, holding her hand.

"I was in the sept, father. You are a great man, but I'm only your natural daughter, and a husband like Harry is beyond anything I could ever hope for. That's why I went to the sept to thank the Seven for this wonderful gift," she lied. Now she had learned to lie well, and even Petyr was almost tricked with her answer. But she would be satisfied as long as the others believed her.

He smiled, pleased with her answer. "Alayne has been brought up by septas, and she prays very often. I hope you weren't annoyed by her delay," Petyr apologized. The others shook their heads and assured that they weren't offended, and Littlefinger made himself in charge of the introductions.

"Surely you remember Lady Anya, of the Lords Declarants?" Alayne nodded, noticing how the woman averted her gaze, ashamed by the mention of the group she had joined to disempower Petyr. "This is her son, Ser Donnel, the Knight of the Gate. The younger one is Wallace, the youngest of the Waynwoods. And the young knight by my side is ser Harrold Hardying, Lady Waynwood's ward, and your betrothed."

She greeted them one by one, observing and analyzing carefully but covertly her future husband, who met her gaze and didn't look away from her even after he noticed her scrutiny. He was an attractive young man with deep blue eyes and sandy straight hair. His features were fine but masculine. His shoulders were broad and seemed to be hard with muscle. Alayne noted that he smiled at her. She smiled back, wondering nervously whether he found her pretty or was just trying to be polite. They sat at the table again, and then Petyr ordered the serving girls to bring the first course.

"But, shouldn't we wait for Lord Arryn to join us before we start eating?" Young Wallace complained.

"Lord Robert is a child. He isn't used to staying up so late. He has already dined in his chambers, and he is asleep now. I hope you'll forgive his absence," Petyr excused him. The guests accepted his apology and Myranda asked about the tourney in which Harry had been made a knight. The young guests were pleased with the topic and talked excitedly about it for a while, and Wallace said he hoped for the occasion to repeat itself, so he could earn his own spurs.

Alayne found herself thinking that the youngest knights of the Vale had never been in a battle, and they only showed their prowess in the lists, because the Vale had remained neutral in the conflict. They longed for war to show their strength and valor, but they didn't understand the destruction and loss that it would cause. That saddened her, but it also cheered her, because these knights would gladly agree to fight to get Winterfell back. And the fact that they hadn't had to fight before meant that the Vale hadn't had any loss, and all its strength was now at her disposition.

After some time, Alayne asked shyly when the wedding could take place. "Well, Alayne, your father has told us that it's been a year since your first moon's blood," Lady Waynwood said. "If this is so, we can wait another year, so that your body can mature wholly, and you can get married after that, when you are ready to bear Harry's children. And if your lord father agrees, we can invite you to our castle, so that you can spend some time together and not be strangers when your wedding day comes."

"Don't you believe that I mistrust you, but I wouldn't like to let my Alayne live with Harry before the wedding," Petyr intervened. "Besides, I think my daughter can get married this very year, in some moon's turns. There is no need to wait so long, because she's almost ready."

"I too think she's ready," Lady Myranda informed. "I was her age when I got married, and there are maidens who wed much sooner. I've heard that the Lord Paramount of the North recently married an 11-year-old girl. Arya Stark, I think she was called."

From that moment on, the conversation focused on the news about the noble houses and the war. But Alayne couldn't get the 9-year-old girl that had been Sansa's sister out of her head. When they finished eating and retired to their chambers to sleep, she sought out Petyr, and asked him to rescue her sister.

"My dear Alayne, she is not your sister. She is only a girl who pretends to be Arya Stark at my command, to please the Lannisters. Now that they think they have Arya, they won't look for you. Now go to sleep, sweetling. It's late, and you must be tired."

When she got to her room she found Robert in her bed, crying. "Hey, Sweetrobin, what's happened?" Alayne asked him, sitting beside him.

"I had a horrible dream," he answered, sobbing. "There were a lot of… dead things… everywhere… and they attacked us… and then the Others came…" She hugged him then, seeing how terrified he was, and tried to settle him down, reminding him that the Others didn't exist anymore.

"The Others lived a long time ago, but many brave men (as you will be one day) fought them, and they defeated them completely. One of them, Brandon the Builder, built the Wall, and since then the Others were trapped on the other side, very far from here."

"But, what if they decide to come to this side?"

"They can't, because at the Wall there are brave men too, as Brandon the Builder, who protect us. The Night's Watch, they are called. Have you ever heard about the men of the Night's Watch?"

"A little," he said, dubiously. "They are men who always wear black, and they don't get married or have children. And many of them are bad men, and they are sent there because they do terrible things."

"Some of them are," Alayne had to admit. "But there are others who are good men, and they fight to protect the children like us. I knew some of them," she told him, whispering.

"Who? Tell me, Alayne!" Sweetrobin said, eager to hear her story.

"I will tell you, but only if you promise not to tell anyone."

The boy gave her his word, and she started talking about Benjen and Jon Snow. Robert didn't ask her how she knew them, but she made up an answer nonetheless. She told him that the First Ranger was her mother's brother, and that Jon was her cousin. She told him they were great warriors, trained in a beautiful castle in the North, and that they had gone to the Wall to protect the people who couldn't fight. She also spoke about the Night's Watch, and the Battle for the Dawn.

"But Benjen and Jon don't fight against the Others, because they disappeared long ago, when other brave men defended the Wall. They protect us from the wildlings, who are bad men who live beyond the Wall," she told him after explaining everything she knew about the Others, the Wall and the Night's Watch.  
"Tell me about them!" He asked.

"Tomorrow," she promised. "Today I'm too tired."

He insisted a little, but he was tired too, so soon he gave up and got into the bed with her to sleep. Before she could fall asleep, Sansa realized that however much she tried to be Alayne, she would never forget her past. And as long as the slightest possibility of finding somebody of her family remained, she would not be able to give up on her hope to see them again.

 **Author Note:** I suppose you were expecting an Arya chapter instead of this, but don't worry, because you will get an Arya chapter soon too.

I wish to explain something about this chapter: it is supposed to take place after Sansa's final chapter in Feast. It was written way before Alayne's Winds of Winter chapter was released, though, so many things here happen in a different way, and you might want to try to forget the events of that chapter while reading this fic.

Well, that was all for now. I hope you liked it!


	12. Arya IV

**Arya**

She picked a quarrel and placed it against the string of her crossbow. After that she drew it and looked at her aim, which was many steps away from her. She aimed at it and, when she was confident, she released the string. She had hit it almost in the center. Without wasting time she picked another quarrel. She had to be good enough to be allowed to fight, and that required practice.

She had been very busy with her new tasks as a helper of the night's watch, and she had a lot of things to do. She had only a few free hours to practice her accuracy, and she wanted to make the most of them. With the training sessions, the watches and the journeys from one castle to another to watch over the Wall, she was busy almost all the time. And Jon didn't seem to be any freer than her: he had to plan the wedding of a girl called Alys Karstark to a wildling of the Thenn clan. Besides, he still had many problems keeping the wildlings and the men of the Night's Watch together. Arya had asked Jon why they refused to work together, if the fight against the Others was necessary for everyone, and they had a common objective.

"The Watch has been killing wildlings for centuries, to protect the people who live south of the Wall. Many of these wildlings have seen their parents or brothers killed by men of the Night's Watch. And the sworn brothers believed for centuries that our fight was against them, who kidnapped women and stole the villager's belongings each time they made it south of the Wall. They feel as you would if you were forced to make common cause with the Lannisters," Jon had explained.

Neither the wildlings nor the black brothers had openly complained about her presence at the Wall, because she worked hard and was not a member of the Night's Watch any longer. Queen Selyse, however, was quick to voice her disagreement with the idea of a young noble lady behaving like a wildling and dressing herself with black men's clothes as if she was of the Night's Watch. She had asked, almost demanded Jon to make her behave as befitted her position and to find a suitable match for her, some lord or knight in Stannis's service. He had politely refused, to Arya's relief.

She had also met Stannis's daughter: Shireen. She was a shy and sad girl, used to being mocked and looked down on. Arya didn't do any of these things, though, because she had never cared about appearances: not hers nor anyone else's. But she didn't spend with Shireen as much time as was expected for 2 highborn girls that were the only ones of their age living in the same castle. They only played together during Arya's free hours, that weren't many. And Arya was more interested in improving her abilities with different weapons than in playing come-into-my-castle or monsters and maidens.

Despite all the problems that had to be sorted out and everyday's work, Arya was happy. She had everything she needed: she was at the Wall, with Jon, and without having to pretend to be somebody else. Jon had even allowed her to participate in the patrol journeys from Castle Black to the Shadow Tower, to see how the men in the other castles were faring. Jon hadn't wanted to send her at the beginning, preferring to have her near him and safe, but Arya's insistence had compelled him to let her go, on condition that if Castle Black should suffer an attack from the Others, she would stay hidden and protected until it ended. Of course, Arya had been lying when she accepted Jon's condition.

She had improved her swordplay noticeably, and was now practicing crossbow shooting, because she thought that if she could do it well enough, she might convince Jon to let her fight from a secluded place, shooting lighted arrows. She still liked the sword best, but she had improved her aim a lot, too. She was now as good a crossbowman as anyone from the Watch. At the beginning Satin had trained with her, but now he was Jon's personal steward, and he was busy almost all the time. So now she was alone, in the practice yard, focused only on her target, when Satin's voice called her.

"Gendry, Jon wants to see you. He's got something to tell you."

Arya smiled a little when he called her "Gendry". Of course, Satin knew what her true name was, but he said it was difficult for him to adapt to the change, because he had called her Gendry ever since she came to the Wall. That reminded her of the way Hot Pie had called her "Arry" after learning who she was. And it also reminded her of Gendry (the true Gendry, whom she had known in Yoren's group of recruits.)

"Thank you, Satin. I'll go see him."

"I'll escort you. A lady shouldn't go alone. Besides, I should go back to Jon, in case he wants something."

"You can go with me if you want," Arya accepted. "But I'm not a lady," she added with a seriousness that made Satin laugh. She punched him for that, and he tried not to laugh for the rest of the walk.

"Lord Stark, here's your sister," Satin announced them when they got to Jon's chambers.

"Thank you, Satin. Bring her some honeyed milk, and a dark beer for me, please."

"At once, my lord," he said before withdrawing.

"Have a seat, Arya," Jon pointed to the chair in front of him, and Arya obeyed. "There are some things I'd like to tell you."

Arya looked at him, waiting for him to keep talking. She knew from Jon's expression that it was something important, but she didn't know if it was good or bad.

"A raven arrived today, from White Harbor. It was written by a knight in Stannis's service that was thought to be dead: Ser Davos Seaworth. He says he could recruit the Manderlys for our cause by bringing the heir to Winterfell: our brother Rickon. Lord Manderly's son is taking White Harbor's hosts to help Stannis get Winterfell back, and Davos will come to the Wall to deliver Rickon to us."

Arya took her time to absorb that information. It was something so unexpected and unbelievable that it surprised her. But she composed herself in a minute and exclaimed "Is Rickon alive? Then Theon lied! They got away! Surely Bran too…!"

"Aye, Arya, according to Davos, both of them escaped and they are alive, and we're going to know it for certain when we see Rickon. But they don't know where Bran is, so he's not coming. Rickon will be Lord of Winterfell when he is of age, unless Bran turns up. But there's something else I would like to tell you."

Arya was thrilled. The best thing she had allowed herself to hope after her mother's death was only to find Jon, but now she could see baby Rickon again. Only now Rickon would be 6 years old, and he would be no longer a baby. And Bran had survived too! She may see him again. The last time she had seen him, he had been unconscious. She wanted to see him well once more.

"Arya," Jon called her, "There's another letter I want to tell you about. But I think it will be better if you read it." Jon handed it to her and she started to read it.

 _Dear Jon,_

 _I have had to gather all the courage I have to dare write this letter to you, secretly. Nobody must know that I have written to you, just as nobody (save for me and the one who hid me) knows where I am now._

 _By the time this letter reaches your hands you will probably have heard that I have gone missing. You may have thought that I was dead, but now you know I'm not. One of the reasons why I'm writing to you is for you to know this, because however much you tell yourself that your brothers are now the ones who wear black and man the Wall, I doubt that you will ever be able to forget your family from Winterfell, and you'll probably be glad to know that one of your sisters is alive, even if it's not the one you were closest to._

 _The other reason why I'm sending this letter to you concerns Arya. I have heard that she was forced to marry Ramsay Bolton. But I also heard that that marriage is a lie, and that it wasn't Arya who made the vows, but an impostor that said to be her. I know that you love Arya too much to let them use her that way, so I will not ask you to rescue her: I know you will if you have the chance. What I'm asking is that you send me a message with this raven, telling me everything you know about Arya: where she is, if she's the true one or a fake, if you will be able to rescue her and more._

 _Finally, as I am hidden and pretending to be someone else (here they know me as Alayne Stone, and I am Lord Petyr Baelish's bastard) I ask you not to address this letter to me. Write it for the Lord of the Eyrie, Robert Arryn. He is just an 8-year-old boy, and he won't read it. The maester will let me read it after he's done it himself, but probably not before that. That letter must be impersonal, then. You can disguise your letter as a request for help for the Watch, asking the Vale to provide men and money for you. If I can, I'll get whatever you ask me, as a way of thanking you._

 _I'll be looking forward to hearing from you. Love, from your sister Sansa Stark._

Arya couldn't believe it: Sansa alive too! Hidden and, to her amazement, pretending to be baseborn! She had to be dreaming; there could be no other explanation. Sansa and Rickon couldn't be alive. She had already accepted that all of her family were dead when she saw her mother dead in her dream. _I thought I had lost my pack, but it seems that I have one still_ , she thought.

"Father once told me that during winter, the lone wolves die, but the packs survive. We may yet save ourselves," Arya told Jon.

"Of course we'll save ourselves," Jon assured her. "And we'll save the realms of men from the Others."

"Does it mean you'll let me fight?" Arya asked, excited.

"Satin told me you'd like to take part on the fight with a crossbow. If I can find a sheltered place in a tower from where you can shoot without being seen, I don't see any reason to prevent you from fighting, just as some years ago I found no reason to deny you a sword."

Arya hugged his brother tightly, and he kissed her cheek. Then Satin returned with their drinks. Jon and Arya then chatted for a while, trying idly to guess how their little brother would have changed. Arya pictured Rickon as tall as Bran had been before his fall, and Jon said he would be different in other things too. He had been a little baby when they last saw him, easy to frighten and quick to cry. Now, though, he had been through a lot, and he would surely have turned into a brave stark little boy. Arya could only agree with him. That had happened to them too. They were born as summer children, but war had seasoned them and, hopefully, prepared them for winter.

Before she went to bed that night, she didn't think about the list of names of the people she wanted to see dead, but the ones she wished to see alive again: Rickon, Sansa, Bran, Gendry and Hot Pie, the ones she had lost: Father, Mother, Robb and Syrio Forel, and the one she had seen again, and was with her now: Jon Snow, Jon Stark.

 **Author Note:** I hope you liked this chapter. The only thing that make seem strange to you is Sansa's sudden urge to contact her bastard half-brother and find the sister she never got on well with, but I have an explanation for this. Sansa has been betrothed to 'a monster', Joffrey, and has also had an unwanted marriage, now. She could perfectly sympathize with her poor sister and want to make sure she is not going through the same as her. As for her wish to hear from Jon, I have a quote from Feast that might help to convince you: "She had not thought of Jon in ages. He was only her half brother, but still … with Robb and Bran and Rickon dead, Jon Snow was the only brother that remained to her. _I am a bastard too now, just like him. Oh, it would be so sweet, to see him once again."_


	13. Rickon IV

**Rickon**

Sitting on the deck of the ship he looked at the horizon with anticipation. He could see the water wave constantly near the little ship in which they were traveling, mirroring its movement. But what Rickon was staring at was much further than that: the small undefined shape he could hardly see in the distance, but that Davos claimed was Westeros, and more concretely, the Wall. They were moving quickly towards it, but they were still far away, and they would have to travel for another hour to get there.

The ship Lord Manderly had given Lord Davos in White Harbor, which was called Little Mermaid, was old and small, so it didn't draw unwanted attention. Lord Davos had sailed in it from White Harbor to Skagos, and from there back to White Harbor, with Rickon and his new family. Now they were finishing their voyage from White Harbor to Eastwach by the Sea. There were only 10 men in the crew, because they didn't need more oarsmen to make the little ship move. If the wind was in their favor, it was enough just to lift the sails. If not, the oarsmen rowed to continue the journey, sometimes with Keit's and Wex's help.

The prospect of meeting his half-brother upset Rickon. The last time they had seen each other, Rickon hadn't even been four years old. He didn't remember Jon, and he probably wouldn't recognize Rickon, who was hardly more than a baby when Jon left Winterfell to take the black.

The only living person that would remember him, apart from Osha, would be Bran, he thought. But nobody knew where Bran was, or even if he was still alive. The girls had also disappeared, and anyway, he scarcely remembered them. He might see them again, but he wouldn't see them as his family any longer. Now he had a mother, a grandmother, an older brother and a sister (Lyra.) He had even started to think of Deiro as a little brother, and he missed him, now that they were apart. That was his family: the one that hadn't abandoned him.

But Rickon didn't think about that often. He spent most of the time playing with Lyra to chase each other, and sometimes Keit and Wex played with them too. Osha was in charge of cooking the meals and she tried to keep everything tidy, and sometimes Rickon and his friend helped her, too. That way they could keep themselves entertained for most of the journey, and he didn't reflect on such unpleasant things.

Davos had promised that morning that they would arrive before the sun set, and Rickon could see it was true, because far away he could see the land, and the Wall, getting near quickly as they moved forward. That was the reason why he was gloomy: the moment was about to come. And he couldn't remember how Jon looked like, or how he would recognize him.

When they arrived, they found the harbor at Eastwach almost empty. Some black brothers welcomed them, and when Davos asked about the small number of ships anchored, the men said that most of the ships of the Night's Watch had been sent away for a mission in a place called Hardhome, and they hadn't yet returned.

One of the men that greeted them bid them to wait for him to call the rangers that had come from Castle Black to Eastwach to welcome them and escort them to Castle Black. He came back after some minutes, accompanied by a tall and big man, a small ugly man with large ears and a dark-haired boy that seemed to be about 10 years old, the three of them wearing black. When they were near, the small man asked the boy that had come with the men if he was truly Rickon Stark.

"Yes, he is," the boy replied. "But he doesn't know who I am."

That annoyed Rickon: he didn't like not to recognize someone who knew him. Could it be Jon? He had been told that Jon was a man grown now, and the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, but he couldn't think of any other answer to the mystery of the boy's identity.

"Jon?" Rickon asked, uncertain.

The boy laughed, making Rickon angry. It infuriated him when people laughed at him, as if he had done something foolish or childish. He was on the verge of shouting at him, threatening to make Shaggy bite his face until it was all bloody if he didn't shut up, when he explained himself.

"Jon is in Castle Black. I am your sister, Arya."

"No. You're a boy! You can't be Arya!" Rickon complained, refusing to let this boy make fun of him.

"I'm a girl, truly! I don't want to do it, but I can prove it if you won't believe me," he said, starting to pull his pants down.

"It's fine then, I believe you," Rickon said quickly. If he was willing to do it, he surely was a girl.

"Very well, then," Arya said, beckoning not only him, but all of his party too. "Come with us now, Jon is waiting for us."

They went to the stables and picked a horse for each one of them. The journey from Eastwach to Castle Black took them 5 days of intense riding, and 4 nights sleeping in barely manned castles. When they finally got there they were dirty and tired, but happy for having finished the travel. Jon knew immediately who he was, and he could recognize Jon easily because of the white direwolf that walked beside him.

They were left alone for the rest of the day, so Rickon could eat with his new family, and they prepared a hot bath for each of them and gave them rooms to sleep. Rickon was given one to share with Keit, while Osha had to share her room with Lyra and Davos slept with Wex. After leaving his things in his room, he spent most of the evening exploring Castle Black with Lyra, Keit and Wex.

The next day, Jon called them to announce that he had been legitimized by Stannis, and that he would act as Lord of Winterfell until Rickon was of age. After that, Rickon would have to assume all the titles, lands and responsibilities he had inherited. He also told them to attend a dinner in the King's Tower, where they would meet Queen Selyse and her daughter, Princess Shireen. The priestess Melisandre would also be in attendance, and Jon had asked Arya to come too. Rickon refused to go, but Jon told him it was a command, and he could not disobey it. Furious but resigned, Rickon had no choice but to accept it.

Jon also told Rickon to take fencing lessons. He had never been taught how to wield a sword, because he had had to flee Winterfell when he was 4, and the only thing he knew about sword fighting was that it was a kind of sport with 2 swords that clashed with each other, and that you had to try to defeat your rival without getting hurt. Iron Emmett was especially patient with him, because he was just a child, and because it was his first class.

But the only person that offered to challenge him was Arya, who always beat him, seemingly without effort. That frustrated him. Even though he was used to seeing women that could fight (in Skagos, most of them were spearwives) he had never been defeated by a girl. The lessons that Keit had given him to teach him to fight with a spear were only for Deiro and him, because the other kids in the village were either almost expert using the spear, or too small and weak to hold one properly. Deiro had been his only rival, and even though he sometimes beat him, that wasn't a problem for Rickon, because he also won sometimes, too. When his training session was over he was exhausted, frustrated and angry. He just wanted to lock himself in his room, where unless Keit was there, he could enjoy a moment of solitude to cry, scream and unburden himself as a kid would.

When he got in and saw that the room was empty, he picked up the cushions on his bed and threw them to the floor with all his strength, and when he had thrown them he punched the bed with his right fist, then with his left, and after that with his right again. He hit as hard as he could, as though his bed was some kind of enemy he was fighting against. And each time he stroke he screamed loudly and cried. He cried because he didn't know how to use a sword, because his family had been destroyed without warning or reason before they could teach him how to grip one properly. He cried because they had taken from him everything he had and loved, and he never knew why, or what he could do to prevent it. He cried because he hadn't been able to fight. He cried for Winterfell. He cried for the father he had lost, and could scarcely remember. He cried for his mother, who had gone away from him so soon. He cried for Robb, the elder brother he would never see again. He cried for the sisters he had forgotten, and the one he had found impossible to recognize. He cried for the unknown man who was his father's son, but whom he couldn't see as a brother. When the physical exertion tired him out, he lay down, sobbing, with his eyes closed, until he got asleep.

"Hey Rickon, wake up!" He heard Osha call him while some hands shook him to get him up.

"Leave me! I don't want to get up," Rickon complained, even though he knew that however stubborn he could be, arguing with Osha was a waste of time.

"And I don't want to get you up, but I'll carry you in my arms and drag you to the King's Tower if you keep refusing. Your brother commanded us to attend this dinner to introduce you to the queen, so we must go."

 _A ridiculous dinner with a queen is the last thing I need now_ , Rickon thought. He would have to be polite and mind his manners. He wouldn't be left alone until bedtime. But after complaining a bit more, he finally agreed to follow her.

When they arrived, he saw the others were already seated around a large table. Jon introduced them with everyone they didn't know, starting with the First Steward and the First Builder of the Night's Watch, then with Val, a woman of the Free Folk that was called by many "the wildling princess", even though both she and Jon explained again and again that "wildlings" didn't use that title, and last but not least, the queen, her daughter Shireen, and the priestess Melisandre.

"Then, Lord Stark, you mean to renounce to your rights to your father's lands and titles to give them to your younger brother?" Selyse asked Jon after the introductions were made.

"I do, Your Grace. I only accepted Winterfell because I thought all my brothers were dead, and that I was the only one of my father's sons that was alive. Now that I know that it's not so, I want to give the lands and titles of my family to Rickon. However, I mean to wield all the power and bear all the responsibilities of his position as his regent, until he is 16 years old."

"So, Rickon would be Lord of Winterfell, Warden of the North and Lord Paramount of the North," Selyse said, thoughtful. "The boy seems to be a little wild and temperamental, and it is evident that he has not received an education befitting his birth, but he is still very young, and it can be solved. I will accept your decision, Lord Jon, but the future Lord of Winterfell will have a proper education. I will personally take charge of this, taking him under my custody and responsibility. Rickon Stark will be my ward, until he comes of age."

"I don't want to be anybody's ward!" Rickon complained. "I want to live with my mother and my siblings! I don't want to!" and he started to sob again, uncontrollably.

"Rickon, you know that Mother is not coming back. And your siblings are us, and we're right here. It's not so bad," Arya tried to comfort him. But she didn't understand that Rickon's mother was Osha, and they wouldn't let her stay with him. That his siblings now were Lyra and Keit, and that he wouldn't change them for anyone, except maybe for Bran.

"Excuse the little lord. He's just a boy, and he isn't used to being awake so late. By your leave, Your Grace, may I take him to bed?" Osha asked Selyse. She let them go. Osha lifted and carried him, but by the time when they reached the room Rickon was already fast asleep.


	14. Jon V

**Jon**

The letter Clydas handed him was sealed in pink, and it came from Winterfell. He immediately knew it was nothing good: the traitor Boltons were occupying Winterfell, after all, as the seal confirmed. And when he finished reading it, his only solace was to think that Ramsay could be lying. Because, if King Stannis had been truly murdered, what could he do? The right thing to do would be to swear loyalty to the queen Shireen, but it would do no good. In those complicated times they needed a strong leader and Stannis had already had many problems to keep his people quiet. How would a 10 year old girl do that?

Besides that, the letter threatened him directly. _I want my bride back_ , it said. _I want the false king's queen. I want his daughter and his red witch. I want this wildling princess. I want his little prince, the wildling babe. And I want my Reek. Send them to me, bastard, and I will not trouble you or your black crows. Keep them from me_ … _and I will cut out your bastard's heart and eat it._

Of course, Jon knew that Arya was at the Wall, but he preferred not to let Ramsay know that. The only ones who knew were those living at the Wall, and there were very few of them who could write, none of which had sent any letter to inform anyone about Arya's presence in Castle Black. The changes that had been made in the Wall, then, remained a secret for the rest of the world. Or almost, Jon corrected himself in his thoughts. Because there was one person, in a castle in the Vale of Arryn, who had received a letter in which Jon explained her every detail of the situation at the Wall, what they knew about Stannis and, as had been requested, about Arya's whereabouts.

What should he do, then? Answer the letter? Tell Ramsay that, as Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, he took no part in what happened in the rest of Westeros? Or should he threaten him with his life? Or maybe march to Winterfell without warning, help Stannis (if he was still alive) and take his family's castle once and for all?

Seated at his desk, in the silent intimacy of his room, Jon pondered on that for a long time. And while he did that, he thought also of the many unresolved matters he still had to find a solution for. Rickon's issue, for example, was one of them. Jon had refused to submit his little brother to the queen as a ward, and she had refused to accept him as Lord of Winterfell until he yielded. And he was aware of the fact that Rickon needed to have a proper education, and that neither him nor the spearwife who had protected him so far could give it to him, but he didn't want to hand the child over without his consent. Besides, Selyse had other reasons to want Rickon as her ward: if she brought Rickon up and he lived with her for what was left of his childhood, she could win his loyalty for life. And he was a boy, while the queen had only a daughter. So she could be considering the possibility of a union between their houses. But only trying to imagine Rickon as Lord of the Seven Kingdoms made Jon's head ache.

And if he had not enough dilemmas with that, there was Sansa. They hadn't been especially close as children: she was a little lady and, to make it worse, Catelyn's junior version, while he was his father's bastard. But she was alive, and Jon was the only one who knew. She hadn't asked for a rescue, but he wasn't going to let his sister be locked up and forced to abandon her identity without even trying to do anything about it.

But he had to face one problem at a time, and the first one was Ramsay's letter. And he decided that he had to attack: he wouldn't know anything for certain if he stayed at the Wall, but if he marched to war and personally got Winterfell back it would be different. He needed to be quick, though, because Jon had to be back in Castle Black before the Others decided to attack the Wall.

His final decision was, then, not to answer the letter and to take them by surprise. Jon knew that Stannis had, thanks to him, most of the military strength of the mountain clans and houses Umber, Mormont and Karstark, while Davos had won over house Manderly, which had the advantage to be inside the castle, and that the enemy trusted them. His plan had high probabilities of succeeding, then.

He would go accompanied by the men and women of the free folk who would care to go with him, and he would leave the Wall under Bowen Marsh's command. Because, even if their opinions were seldom alike, the crannogman war respected by his sworn brothers, he was loyal to the Watch, and his performance as First Steward was remarkable. He would probably have no trouble commanding the Watch, provided that Jon managed to take most of the wildlings south with him.  
The decision was publicly announced during lunchtime, and Jon made clear that he would accept the support of any sworn brother or man of the Free Folk who volunteered to join him, but that the decision was theirs, and he would not command them to march against their will. Some men of the Watch seemed annoyed, but after he had said that and put Marsh in charge nobody dared to complain. Tormund showed loudly his will to march with him, and his followers did the same. Some others also agreed to join him, but not so loudly. Satisfied, Jon declared that they would set off in a week, and he withdrew right after that, headed for his chambers.

But before he could get there he heard a man's agonizing scream, and without even thinking he ran to the place where the noise came from. When he found the man, he saw that his arm had just been cut off, and that his life's blood was swiftly escaping his body. There was another man in sight, who had his sword unsheathed and was facing the giant Wun Wun, who had shallow cuts in different parts of his body. Jon understood what had happened and he decided that, as he couldn't talk to the giant, he should try to convince the man (a queen's man, he knew now that he had approached him) to stop fighting.

"Lay down your sword," Jon ordered him, but the man stared at him as if he was mad. "Sheath your sword, if you want to stay alive." Jon was aware that they were now surrounded by men, because those who had been eating had also heard the screams, and they had come to see what was going own. "Your fellow will die, and you won't save him by losing your own life. You're scaring the giant, and he will attack you if you don't stop threatening him." Trembling, the knight decided to obey him. He backed away, and slowly sheathed his sword. After that he walked away, slowly and without taking his eyes off Wun Wun, who was also watching him attentively, relaxing a little bit while he came out of sight. Finally, when everyone was quiet and the tension faded, Jon ordered the dying man to be taken to Clydas's chambers, so that he could be tended to. It wasn't that he thought that he had chances to survive, but he would suffer less with treatment.

This time he did go to his chambers, and he told Satin to bring Rickon to him. While his steward sought his brother he sat down in his armchair and closed his eyes, tired, and he wondered if things would ever get calmer at the Wall. Jon's strongest skill was his ability to fight, and his strategy to plan attacks or defenses, but he lacked the cunning needed to treat with kings and queens in a time of war and chaos. There was nothing he would like better than to go down to the practice yard and challenge somebody, as if being fit and trained was his only responsibility. But because of his sworn brother's choice, and the unfortunate events that had destroyed his family, he had now many things to worry about.

"My lord, here is your brother," Satin said, making his eyes shot open. He hadn't heard his silent footsteps approaching him.

"Tell him to come in," Jon ordered, while he prepared to meet the youngest of his siblings, and the one he knew the least.

The boy came in, but he stopped standing by the door, without saying a word, until the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch told him to take a sit in front of him. He obeyed, then, but he still looked warily at Jon.

"Rickon, I wanted to tell you that I refused Selyse's offer to take you as her ward. But I only did it because you didn't want it. And if I agree with Stannis's wife in one thing, it's that you need a conventional education: you can't be Lord of Winterfell and be unable to read, and you have to know something of history, at least of the northern houses. If you won't be Selyse's ward, I'll have to ask her to let you be tutored by the Baratheon's maester. But she may refuse, because we've offended her when we rejected her offer, and in that case, the closest thing we have to a maester at Castle Black is Clydas, and he's not nearly as good. The choice is yours, Rickon. Are you sure you don't want to be the queen's ward?"

"I'm sure," he said with the stubborn attitude he shared with most of his siblings. "The queen won't let me see my mother. I won't let them take her away from me."

Jon knew, at this point, that the "mother" Rickon was talking about was not Lady Catelyn, whom he barely remembered, but Osha, the wildling woman that had looked after him the previous years.

"I can talk to her, and convince her to let you see her. She can even be your sworn shield, because she can fight."

"And what about my siblings? I don't want to part from Keit and Lyra."

"I'll see if Selyse agrees to take Lyra as a ward, too. I don't think she'll refuse to give her daughter a friend to play with. And Keit will remain at the Wall for the time being, helping to defend it but without taking the black. You won't have to part from them."

"If they let me keep my family, I accept. But I won't stand by and let them take it away from me again."

"Don't worry about that, Rickon. I'll see that Her Grace accepts your terms. You may leave," Jon replied, feeling how sadness overcame him as he realized that the boy believed that the Stark family was already lost, and the only one that counted was the one he had found after. He had no hope of seeing his true siblings again, and Arya and Jon were strangers to him: he hadn't seen them since he was 3 years old, and the first thing he remembered about them was, possibly, their reunion at the Wall.

His brother (if he was that still) bowed slightly and withdrew without a word. Jon found himself wondering if things would be different for Rickon had Robb been the survivor, instead of him. And if it was Bran instead of Arya. They had been with him for more time, and he did remember them. But Jon and Arya had only been names for Rickon, as Rickard, Brandon and Lyanna were to Jon.

But leaving the sad reflections that the conversation had caused him aside, Jon was pleased, because he had already solved the problem of his heir's education. Or almost: he had yet to speak with Selyse, which he planned to do the following day. And in the meanwhile, he could start planning Sansa's rescue. But that seemed difficult, and far away. He had not the least idea of which situation she was in. Was she a prisoner? A hostage? What did they intend to do with her? Get a ransom for her rescue? Exchange her for somebody else? Or maybe she was free, and was hiding so that she could keep her freedom? Was there someone helping her? Until he had more information, he couldn't do anything. But Jon vowed to himself that, if by the time they got Winterfell back he didn't hear from his sister again, he'd make a plan as the one Melisandre had offered to bring Arya. He'd rescue her silently and stealthily.


	15. Sansa

**Author Note:** this is probably the most nonsensical chapter in all the fic. I tried to edit it and make it better, but it still remains somewhat far-fetched and unrealistic. If you bear with this one, though, I think nothing that comes after will be able to put you off.

 **Sansa**

Seated on a small bench on _Princess Daena's_ deck, Sansa was happy, feeling her hair dance with the wind. As she looked out, where the water shimmered in the sunshine and waved without pause, and the earth was barely visible in the horizon, she couldn't help but be proud of herself. This was the first time she took an important decision, and it worked. Or at least, it had worked so far. Was that what playing the Game of Thrones felt like? She wasn't very certain if that was what she was doing, but even if she wasn't, she had to be careful.

She had managed to take the responsibility of tending to the ravens of the Gates of the Moon when Lord Baelish went off to visit Lord Royce, leaving Nestor Royce and the maester busy with the preparations for the tourney in her honor and her wedding. Maester Colemon could have done it without much trouble, but she had asked to be in charge of the castle's correspondence, saying that she wanted to have some duties before getting married and he had gladly agreed, because he could now dedicate more time to Robert, whose health worsened as winter drew near. That is how in the end it was her who had opened Jon's letter. She had read it many times since then, and almost knew it by hard:

 _To Lord Robert Arryn, of the Eyrie._

 _From Castle Black I write to the Gates of the Moon to request urgent help. I know that during the War of the 5 Kings the Vale remained neutral. And the Night's Watch would have, too, if it had not been in such a desperate need of support. The only King who heard our pleas was Stannis, so we allied with him._

 _We are not, however, asking the Vale to do the same. The help we are asking is for something more important, and basic. While the kings play their game of thrones, at the Wall there is a great danger that threatens to destroy the realms of men. Our desperate state led us to make common cause with those who have been our enemies for centuries: the Free Folk, also known as 'the wildlings'._

 _Surely by now you will be wondering what could be more important than the war between the kingdoms, and what forced the Watch to ally with the Free Folk. The answer is simple but unbelievable, despite being a fact: the Others, who had not made any appearance in 8000 years, attacked. We lost many men trying to defeat them and they are still beyond the Wall, but we need help to keep them at bay and save Westeros from them. And the warring kings refuse to acknowledge the truth: that when the dead men walk the earth, nobody will care about who sits the Iron Throne._

 _About the kind of help we are asking for, it is not men to man our castles, as we used to request. We have enough now with the free folk. We ask for food to survive this winter, because with our new numbers we will run out of reserves in about 2 years. And if you would like to send lords and knights trained for battle, and arms forged with valyrian steel (the only metal that proved useful against the Others) I will be immensely grateful. We do not want them to join our organization, but merely to help us with our mission during this winter._

 _Finally, though we are not asking you to support Stannis's cause, I would like to inform you of the general political situation at the Wall. Stannis is fighting to get Winterfell back, at the moment, and he will give it to my brother Rickon (who was not murdered, as we thought) when he gets it. I will be his regent until he is 16 name days. My sister Arya is alive too, and she is currently living at Castle Black. The Boltons claim to have her imprisoned, but it is a fraud._

 _That said, I hope to find in the Vale somebody who hears of our need, and who helps us survive the winter that is coming._

The letter was signed _'Lord Commander of the Night's Watch Jon Stark.'_

It had been 2 weeks since that letter arrived. She had showed it to master Colemon, who had barely believed his eyes. Sansa had decided to go to the Wall, to take food to Castle Black and to try to find out what was going on. Maester Colemon had wanted to send some men with provisions to donate, but Sansa had insisted in going herself, claiming that she wanted to see the Wall, which was the most fascinating thing that men had ever built in Westeros. She told the Royces of her decision too, and asked them to help her.

The maester had warned her that at those problematic times she should travel with protection, because it was dangerous for a maiden to travel alone and unguarded. Sansa said she would accept some help, but also stated that she didn't wish to draw attention. In the end, it was decided that she should be escorted by Ser Albar Royce and Ser Donnel Waynwood, who had volunteered to help her. When that was agreed, Sansa packed everything she needed, picked 40 golden dragons (some of it Petyr had given her to get new dresses, but most of it was given by the Royces, as a donation for the Wall), she parted from Colemon, Robert and Randa and she got ready to start the journey.

They got to Gulltown after 5 days of intense riding and they started looking for a ship that would take them to Eastwatch by the Sea. But as winter was near and the war seemed endless, there were very few captains willing to go to the North. The first day they found none, so they had to look for an inn to stay for the night. But the next day, Ser Albar convinced the captain of a small ship to take them, paying him the money he needed to repair the ship's damaged sails and ruined deck after a stormy journey. They had had to wait other 2 days before _Princess Daena_ was ready to depart.

Finally they had set off, and the ship proved to be surprisingly swift. Sansa spent most of her trip in her cabin, lying on her bed, because she got dizzy when she walked on the deck. She ate little, because the ship's movements closed her stomach, and the only thing that distracted her was watching the sea, in its constant movement.

As she looked at the horizon, to the line where the sea joined the sky, she wondered for the hundredth time what had happened. How had Rickon survived? Had he escaped Winterfell when Theon took the castle? Had Bran survived too? She should ask Rickon when she saw him. Why was Arya at the Wall? And why had Jon allowed her to stay there, if the situation there was so terrible? Did the Others truly exist? Sansa wouldn't have believed it if the letter hadn't been so formal and desperate, and if it hadn't been sent in such a problematic time in which there was no place for jokes.

But as they got near the Wall her thoughts changed, and she started wondering what was going to happen next. What was she going to find? What was the Wall like? Should she introduce herself as Alayne, or as Sansa? She supposed that Alayne would be better, at least until she spoke with her brother. The knights that were traveling with her knew her by that name. Things had changed a lot, and now that boy she had never accepted as anything closer to her than a 'bastard half-brother' was the bravest one in her family, and the hero, if her tragic reality could somehow be compared to a song.

Sansa tried to picture that grey-eyed, dark-haired boy in a man's body, that of a youth of 16 name days. Strong and muscular, dressed in black from head to toes. She also tried to visualize her adventurous, willful and wild little sister with a sword in her hand and her hair tied back. She would be taller now, she guessed, because there had passed more than 2 years since they had last seen each other. _Is she still a child? Or has she already bled?_ Sansa wondered.

And last, Sansa also tried to guess how the baby of the family would have changed. And she realized he would not be a baby anymore: now he would be 5 or 6 years old. He would be bigger; maybe even as tall as Bran had been before he fell. She would surely find him laughing and playing with some wooden sword, oblivious to the tragedy that had occurred in that long time.

They had been a fortnight in the ship, and then they finally arrived in Eastwach. As soon as they reached port, 2 guards ran to them, evidently surprised by their unexpected arrival.

"Who are you?" a man with a long beard that was part brown and part grey asked her.

"My name is Alayne Stone, and I'm the natural daughter of Lord Regent and Protector of the Vale Petyr Baelish. These knights that came with me are Ser Albar Royce and Ser Donnel Waynwood. We came to give the Night's Watch our support in these perilous times, but we need to reach Castle Black and see the Lord Commander."

The men seemed to relax with her explanation. The one who hadn't spoken said: "Be welcome to the Wall. We'll send a patrol tomorrow to escort you to Castle Black. In the meanwhile you'll have to stay here. Wait a minute, and I'll bring a steward who'll find some rooms for you."

That was how after a cold night in which she couldn't even sleep a wink, the last part of her journey started: the one that went from Eastwatch to Castle Black. The cold in the Wall during autumn was far worse than anything she could have imagined, and though she was wearing the warmest clothes she had brought from the Vale, they were not nearly enough for the North's climate, before long she had chills and her hands went numb.

When the sun started going down, though, she stopped feeling so cold. She smiled, thinking that she had finally gotten used to it, but when they finished the day's ride she noticed it was not so: her fingers failed her when she wanted to let go of the reins and dismount, and she had goosebumps all over her arms. She was panting and her heart was racing, beating hard against her chest. They spent the night at a castle named Long Barrow, which was mostly manned by wildling women. She was given a hot soup to help her get warm and she could soon feel her hands and feet again, but the cold did not leave her that night even after she buried herself, head and all, completely under the blanket.

The following day was worse: the chills turned into shivers, and all her body, not just her hands, seemed to go numb. Fortunately she didn't need to command her horse, as it went straight after the others, but that didn't make it an easy ride: her limbs were almost frozen, and she had to make a significant effort just to stop herself from falling off her horse. Ser Albar noted that she was pale and her lips and ears had an ill bluish color to them, so he asked the commander of Sable Hall, the next castle they visited to light a big fire just beside her bed, and to give her as many blankets as they could spare, but even that wasn't enough to warm her.

She found it very hard to get out from bed the third day, and walking was almost impossible. She could hardly feel her legs. Ser Donnel helped her climb into his horse and carried her with him. She closed her eyes, exhausted, and did not open them again until the knight that rode with her whispered something in her ear and helped her down. She looked around, confused and lost, trying to understand where she was.

This time nobody asked their names. If they had, Sansa might have been unable to utter a reply; even her tongue seemed frozen. A small group of men dressed in black came to greet them and welcomed them to Castle Black. With the mention of that place, memory started to come slowly back to Sansa. One of the men quickly fetched a girl, and she escorted her to a spacious room with a lighted hearth and many thick blankets in the bed. The girl told her, when she noticed her weak health, that she would bring some hot water to prepare her a bath. Sansa weakly thanked her for the attention and asked her to inform Lord Commander Snow of her arrival.

"Jon has been legitimized. Now they call him 'Lord Stark'. And he already knows you are here. You don't need to hurry. You need to rest. I will come soon with the water for your bath." She said as she withdrew.

Sansa lay down on the comfortable bed and waited for the promised bath. She was about to get asleep again when the door opened and two men and the girl came in, each of them carrying 2 big pails of hot water. They emptied the pails in a bath tub in a corner of the room and the men left, leaving only the girl to help her.

"Take my hand, Sansa," she said. "I'll help you."

She obeyed, relying on the girl's arm to get in the tub, but before she could sit there it struck her: she had called her Sansa, while she had introduced herself as Alayne. She looked intently into the girl's eyes, and she felt tears escaping her own eyes and running down her cheeks. That disheveled girl dressed in black who was bathing her as if she was her handmaiden was her sister, Arya. She hugged the girl, who hesitated only for a second before hugging her back.

"Don't worry, Sansa. Now the pack is together again. Everything will be fine," Arya said, trying to settle her down.

But that was wrong: Sansa was the eldest one, and it should be her who comforted Arya, and not the other way around. Besides, either Arya was lying, or she didn't know the truth, because, who could say that everything would be fine after finding out that there was an entire army of undead beings preparing to attack the Wall?

But Sansa willed herself to stop crying and keep her composure. It was only when Arya had left the room after helping her lay down on her bed that she allowed herself to cry again. And she cried herself to sleep.


	16. Arya V

**Arya**

"Arya, could you bring me a glass of water, please?" Sansa asked when she got up.

Arya nodded, filled the glass that was on her sister's bedside table with water and handed it to Sansa, who drank a long gulp.

She had been given the task of 'taking care of Lady Alayne', which consisted mainly in helping her to get dressed, preparing her hot bathes, brushing her hair and calling Clydas or master Pylos when the girl's health seemed to get worse. Fortunately, she was not freezing anymore: on the contrary, now she had a fever. She also had a cough and seemed to have trouble breathing, but that had also started to heal and Sansa was feeling much better now, after almost a week of illness.

Arya also had to clean her room, make her bed and try to make her as comfortable as possible, but that didn't bother her: it had been Arya herself who offered to do the job, because as there were yet no battles to fight, looking after her sister seemed to be as good a job as any other. And Arya wanted to talk to her again, and to know what had happened to Sansa during those 2 years in which they hadn't seen each other. Besides, Sansa would probably feel more comfortable with someone who knew her and with whom she didn't have to pretend to be somebody else.

"Arya, I need to talk to Jon. I want him to know that I'm fine, and that I want to help him. I want to ask him what I should do. I had never thought I would ask him advice before," she said, sighing. "But I'm lost now, and he's the only one left."

"You're wrong, Sansa. I'm alive to, and I'm right in front of you. And even though you haven't seen him yet, Rickon is here at the Wall too. And I think Bran is alive too, in a hidden and safe place, far away from here. I feel him sometimes, in my wolf dreams." Then Arya remembered that her sister's direwolf had been murdered because of her, and that she would never have a wolf dream. Fortunately, Sansa didn't say anything on that matter.

"I know that, but Rickon is a little boy and, forgive me for saying this, but I think you would be even more lost than me if you were in my situation. Besides, I want to see them all. I'm happy to have you again, but I would like to see our brothers too."

"I'll speak with Jon, if you want. I will tell him you want to see him. Pylos said you are almost cured, so I think you can have a visit," Arya said, pretending not to notice that Sansa had referred to Jon as her "brother" for the first time in her life.

"Thank you very much, Arya," her sister said. Arya stood up and started walking toward the door, but Sansa stopped her. "Arya, can you tell me how you got here? And how you escaped the Red Keep?"

"It's quite a long story. Do you really want to know?"

"Yes. I want to know what happened to you in those years in which you were alone and unprotected. I want to know how much you have changed, and if you will ever be the same you were before the war."

"Sansa, all of us were alone and unprotected. We all suffered, and we all changed. We grew up, and the war made us harder. But we are still a pack, even if we are not the children we were when we lived together at Winterfell in the summer. If you want, though, I will tell you my story," she answered, sitting on Sansa's bed.

Arya proceeded to tell her sister of her 'adventures', from her last lesson with Syrio Forel to her unexpected arrival at Castle Black, skipping the parts in which she had killed somebody. She also avoided mentioning Jaqen H'gar, because she didn't want to terrify her. Sansa interrupted her once in a while to ask some questions, but most of the time she remained silent, listening.

"I'm so sorry, Arya!" Sansa exclaimed when Arya had finished telling her story.

"Why do you say that? It wasn't your fault that Joffrey had Father beheaded," Arya asked.

"You are right: I'm not to blame for that. But I am to blame for what happened to you. If it wasn't because of me, we could have boarded that ship Father had told us about, and we would have been delivered safely to Winterfell, with Bran and Rickon."

Now it was Sansa's time to tell her story. As she did that, Arya went from the anger of finding out about Sansa's betrayal to the compassion for all the abuses she had suffered in King's Landing, and in the end she forgave her, when she realized how much she had changed and how ashamed she was of the naive and selfish girl she had been before. By the time she got to tell her about what had happened to her at the Vale, Arya had already forgotten her initial displeasure.

"So, you are betrothed again, to a man you hardly know," Arya commented.

"Yes, and I don't know whether I should go back and get married, as Petyr wants me to, or stay here and ask Jon to help me, as he did with Alys Karstark. Besides, I am supposed to be married to Tyrion, and I can't remarry until he dies, because the High Septon would never nullify my marriage without taking me to the Lannisters."

"You are right, Sansa: I have no idea of what I would do you if I were you. I don't even know if I could have survived so long in King's Landing, holding my tongue and pretending not to hate them all. I think they would have killed me."

"Well, I don't think I would have survived to Ser Amory Lorch's attack, either," Sansa replied, smiling.

Arya was relieved to hear that Sansa seemed to be proud of her. Now they understood that each of them had fought to survive in their way. Neither of them was better than the other, and they both deserved the other one's respect.

"I will go to talk to Jon. Wait for me here. I will be back soon," Arya said then, withdrawing from the room.

She went to Jon's chambers and told Satin that she wanted to speak to Jon. The steward apologized, saying that the Lord Commander was busy at that moment, but Arya decided to wait for him. She sat on the ground and built a snowman while she waited, and she remembered the afternoons she had spent playing in the snow with her siblings at Winterfell, back when they were all children, and all alive. She didn't think they would ever play a snowball fight again. Jon was now too old for that and Sansa was about to get married, and she would probably think that playing was for children; not for maidens or married women. And even if they did, she knew it would never be the same. Robb and Bran wouldn't be there, and pretending that everything was like before would only make their absence worse.

She hadn't finished her snowman when the First Builder and the First Steward came out and Satin told her she could come in. She walked directly to Jon's room and entered without knocking, announcing her presence with a "Good morning, Jon!"

"Arya! How are you?"

"I'm fine. Sansa is getting better, and she wants to see you. She says she needs your help. She wants to see Rickon too. She missed all of us very much, she says," Arya reported. She noticed that Jon seemed surprised by the fact that Sansa required his help.

"Well, I will go see her today. And I will bring Rickon with me, if his guardian allows it," he sighed.

Arya bit her lip. She was completely against that stupid queen being Rickon's guardian. As far as she knew, all queens were mean or stupid. And they believed themselves to be too important, more so than everyone else. She didn't like this one better than Cersei, even though she hadn't yet given her reasons to hate her.

She said goodbye to Jon, telling him that she'd wait for him in Sansa's room, and then went back to her job. When Sansa asked her what Jon had said, she told her he had agreed to visit her later that day. Sansa asked Arya to help her change her nightgown for a more proper dress, and then she sat in front of the mirror to comb her hair until it was shiny and neat. After that they talked for a while about their different trips and adventures.

"Do you think the Hound is dead?" Sansa asked her.

"Yes, I do. The last time I saw him he was wounded, feverish and alone. He couldn't even stand up. Unless somebody found him and saved him, he is dead."

"Poor Sandor! It must have been terrible to die that way, in pain and all alone," Sansa said, sighing.

Thar surprised Arya, but it also reminded her of something the Hound had said. She decided to ask Sansa about it.

"He told me he had kissed you. Is that true?"

Sansa blushed, but she nodded slightly. When she saw her sister's perplexed expression she tried to tell her how the confessed kiss had taken place. But Sansa couldn't finish her story because she was soon interrupted by Jon, who had come with Rickon to see her.

"Jon! I'm so glad to see you!" Sansa exclaimed, to Jon's bewilderment. She stood up and approached her half-brother to give him a hug. "I'm sorry if I have ever been unkind to you! Can you forgive me?"

"Settle down, Sansa, everything is all right. You have nothing to apologize for," Jon reassured her, hugging her back. When they broke their embrace Sansa's cheeks were wet with tears. She hugged Rickon too and then sat down on her bed again, taking deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself.

"Jon, my dear brother: you are my only hope now, and the only person I would dare to ask for advice. I beg you please to listen to me, and to help me. Please, I need you!"

Jon promised her that he would listen and try to help her, and Sansa told him her problem. In the end, she asked him what she should do.

"Well, I wouldn't like you to do as Littlefinger told you, because that would mean stealing Rickon's birthright to Winterfell and our father's titles. But if you wish you can marry Harry and tell him that your brother is alive, and that it is to him that should go the lordship of Winterfell. As to your marriage to Tyrion, I think you can consider it devoid of validity, because it was not consummated and also because none of you wished to marry the other. Besides, if he was to be found in Westeros, he would be immediately beheaded. And in the future, when the war is over, you may get an official annulment for your marriage. But it is your decision, and I won't be the one who makes it."

Sansa thought for a minute before she answered. "I shall write to Harry," she said at last. "I will tell him I will marry him. I will ask him to come to the Wall to get me, with all the strength of the Vale that he can gather and with many provisions. I will inform him that there is an important battle to fight, but that I cannot reveal anything until the moment we are together. I will tell him that if he respects me enough to trust me and do as I bid him without needing an explanation, he will be worthy of all my love as his wife and all the trust I have left. And if he comes, I will ask him to defend the Wall with the Vale's forces. What do you think about my plan?"

Jon thanked Sansa for her promise of help, said that it seemed like a good idea to him and that he would support her. Rickon remained silent; he surely didn't even know what they were talking about. But Arya smiled, happy that they were going to join forces to fight together, as a real pack would.

 **Author Note:** this chapter was chiefly inspired by my wish of having Sansa and Arya reunited and getting along for once. I hope I did not pushed them too out of their characters for that. If you liked it, please let me know!


	17. Rickon V

**Rickon**

Maestre Pylos was giving Princess Shireen, Devan Seaworth, Lyra and Rickon a history lesson about the reign of one of the Targaryen kings, but Rickon wasn't paying attention to him. He wasn't interested in knowing what had happened centuries ago with people he hadn't met and would never know. Besides, he couldn't find the reason why they had to study about the kings: as far as Rickon knew, the only thing they did was to make excuses to start wars. Surely there had been better men and women than those kings in the history of Westeros. Honorable and good people, worthy of being remembered. But maester Pylos insisted in making them study the monarchs instead.

"Lord Rickon, can you tell me why Aegon the Conqueror could not conquer Dorne?" The maester asked him, bringing out Rickon's lack of attention.

"I don't know, maester, but I think it was for the best that he couldn't. When a King conquers a place he burns it, destroys it and kills its people. Why do we have to study the lives of the kings? Can't we learn about better people?" The boy answered, showing openly his disinterest in the studied topic.

"Who would you like to learn about, Rickon?" Pylos asked, somewhere between surprised and irritated by the boy's answer.

"About someone who wasn't a King, but who has done something good and important. Someone like Lord Davos, maybe. Or, if we must study about kings, I would like to know of one that did something good, like ending a conflict, saving people and things like that. But I don't want to learn about drunken kings that went around the world starting wars and leaving orphan children throughout the Seven Kingdoms."

"So you want to study about my father?" Devan asked, proud and thrilled.

"Lord Davos is a loyal and honest man, but as he is alive, thank the gods, we can't study his life in a history class. But if you wish, I can teach you about other kings. Do you want to study about Jhaehaerys the Conciliator?

The 4 students nodded and the class started again. Rickon tried hard to pay as much attention as he could, and he was able to follow the lesson. Devan and Shireen seemed happy with the change, but as far as Rickon knew, they never had problems with the maester's lessons. And Lyra was always happy when she studied. She was the most curious girl he had ever known.

"Well, my little lords and ladies, I think it was enough history for today. Shireen and Devan, I'll give you some mathematics problems to solve. I suppose you remember how to make divisions, don't you?" They both nodded and the maester beckoned to Rickon. "To you I shall give a writing lesson. A lord can always have a steward to deal with the numbers, but he must know how to write. Lady Lyra, do you want to learn how to read too?" The girl nodded, because though Keyllie had taught her to speak in the Common Tongue perfectly, the letters hadn't been part of those lessons.

Rickon had already learned to write his name and they had taught him the first letters of the alphabet, but this time Pylos made him study all the letters and write them down. He wouldn't remember them all now, but with some time he would, he told him. When they finished the maester corrected Devan and Shireen's exercises and told them to go and have lunch, because it was past midday.

Devan sat at a small table with his father, far away from the 'Queen's men', who sat all together with Melisandre, the queen and her family. Rickon noticed that Osha and Keit were with Davos too, so he approached them to take a seat and eat with them.

"Good afternoon, Rickon," they greeted him, and he greeted them back as he sat down on a vacant chair.

"Lord Rickon, won't you come with me to the great table?" Shireen asked, disappointed.

Rickon knew that, as King Stannis's daughter, she had no choice but to seat with her mother and the only other child who could sit there was Rickon, because he was the queen's ward. Lyra was Selyse's ward too, but the queen wasn't interested in the girl and had only taken her under her wing because Rickon wasn't willing to part from her.

"I will go with you, if Lyra can come too," Rickon answered.

"Of course. You can come both." And the 3 children went to the table in which the queen sat with her family, her ladies in waiting and, of course, with Melisandre. Sansa was there too, because though they all thought her to be a bastard, she was the only representative of the Vale, and they respected her for that.

Selyse, Melisandre and the queen's relatives all greeted Rickon and Shireen, but all of them, except from Sansa, purposefully ignored Lyra. This annoyed Rickon, but the girl didn't seem offended. As they ate their meal, which consisted in chicken and cooked vegetables, the children discussed what they should do during the afternoon, which was the time in which they had no lessons and could play freely, without responsibilities. Shireen leaned more towards a quiet game, as "come-into-my castle", while Rickon preferred "monsters and maidens". Lyra didn't know any of those games, but when Shireen explained her the rules of each she said that she'd like to start with "come-into-my-castle", because she thought Rickon needed to learn about the noble houses of Westeros. Defeated, he had to accept their choice.

They sat together to play in a yard. Shireen and Rickon had their own houses to play with, but Lyra didn't, so Shireen told her to play as if she was of a noble house of Skagos. She chose House Magnar, which was the best known and most important of them. Devan joined them soon after, and Keit approached them to watch the game, but he didn't play because he hardly knew some words in the common tongue and he didn't understand the game. Rickon was playing and having fun with his new friends when they were interrupted.

"Children, I don't want to disturb you but Lord Commander Stark requires his brother's presence immediately," Osha told them. "He says that, if they wish, his friends Devan and Keit can come too," she added, looking at the aforementioned boys.

"Why is Jon calling us?" Rickon asked, intrigued. He hadn't spent much time with his brother and when he called him it was mainly because of important family matters, and his friends weren't invited to those "meetings".

"Lord Stark says that the future Lord of Winterfell must know how to use a sword and that, as your foster family isn't dealing with that educational need, it will be him who teaches you how to fight. Jon said that your friends are welcome in his classes, if they wish to participate."

Devan and Keit accepted the invitation, thrilled to be instructed by the young man who had defended the Wall successfully despite the adverse situations and who had been named Lord Commander at only 16.

Jon made them practice in couples and he participated too, correcting the ones who fought against him. Rickon was getting better at it, but his friends were bigger and older, and Devan had had years of training, so they always beat him. He liked fighting Jon better, because he moved more slowly and predictably, allowing Rickon to respond to his blows and block them. Of course, he knew that if he wanted Jon could live him on the floor and unarmed in a second, but Jon, unlike the others, didn't want to win: he wanted Rickon to learn.

In the end, when the sun was almost completely gone, Jon put an end to the class. He asked Rickon to go to his private chambers for dinner and he left them. Rickon went with his friends to look for the girls to see if they wanted to have a snowball fight. As they weren't in any of the common rooms, Rikon suggested looking for them in Shireen's room.

"I don't think that is a good idea," Devan said, looking out a window. The sun was setting, almost gone, and there was snow in the yard. "It is getting late, and it's too cold outside. We should leave the snowball fight for tomorrow."

"We could play something inside," Rickon suggested. "Maybe they will want to play monsters-and-maidens now. If Shireen's room is big enough, we can even play in there."

"Are you out of your mind? We can't play monsters and maidens in the princess' room! And at this hour, too!"

Rickon didn't understand why his friend refused to go, but Devan wasn't much willing to explain. He just said that doing that would be improper and disrespectful, and that if they wished, Rickon and Keit could go and look for them by themselves, but he was not coming. So Rickon went with Keit to find the girls. He could hear themtalk from outside the princess' room. They talked in hushed voices and laughed excitedly, but he couldn't make out their words.

"Aren't you going to open the door?" Keit asked him. There was no guard there, so they were alone in front of the closed door. Rickon knocked and waited until Shireen opened it.

"Rickon? What are you doing here?" She asked him nervously when she saw him. Rickon noticed that her right cheek, the one that wasn't affected by the greyscale, was blushed. _Maybe I should have heeded Devan_ , he thought, unsure.

"I came to look for you. I wanted to invite you and Lyra to play a snowball fight," he answered.

"It's almost the night now, Rickon. We can't play outside today. But if you want, we can do it tomorrow." Now she seemed more relaxed.

"Alright. Then, do you want to play something in here?" He asked, hopeful.

"Something like what?"

"I don't know; anything. But it'd be better if it wasn't 'come-into-my-castle'. Keit wants to play with us, and he doesn't understand that game."

"We can play 'monsters and maidens.' But you have to be quiet and keep it secret. My mother would get really angry if she found out about this."

They played together for a while and Rickon had a lot of fun, but he kept wondering what could be wrong about a group of friends gathering together in the room of one of them to play. After a while it grew late and they had to stop playing and go have dinner. Shireen went with her mother in the King's tower, Keit and Lyra went to the common hall and Rickon went to the tower in which Jon resided.

There, Satin guided him to a small room that had a table and 4 chairs. One of them was free, reserved for him. In the other ones were Jon, Sansa and Arya. "Hi," Rickon greeted them shyly. "May I ask why you called me?"

"Yes, you may, Rickon," Jon answered kindly. "Some time ago, (a very long one, it seems now) we were part of a family. That family, as it was before, doesn't exist anymore. We are the ones left, and each of us took a different path. I have other brothers now: my Sworn Brothers. Sansa assumed another identity, and now she has a new father, a step-brother and a betrothed. Arya spent a long time traveling, and you were living in Skaagos, where you found people who loved you and cared for you. But first and foremost, we were, and still are, Starks of Winterfell. I invited you to this table, Rickon, so that we can be a family again."

After that he asked him how his day had been, and he told them about the morning lesson. Arya laughed at his bold answer to the maester's question and asked him about the practice session with Jon. And slowly, their conversation became more relaxed and natural. In the end it felt as though they were a true family, used to sharing meals and being together.


	18. Jon VI

**Jon**

He walked by the Wall, watching the builder's constant work. With some luck they would be able to increase the size of that huge barrier that would protect them that winter, because it wasn't likely to melt, with the cold years that would follow. The Citadel's white raven had arrived some days ago, announcing the beginning of the first winter Jon would ever see. He had sighed in frustration when he saw the raven. It was a black raven he wanted to receive from the Citadel, telling him of Sam's progress at Oldtown, and not a white one to tell him that winter was coming. He was a Stark, and the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch besides; he already knew that.

Fortunately, now he didn't have to worry about the resources and food they would need to survive the winter, because the Iron Bank's loan had already solved that problem. Of course, that would create another problem later, when he had to pay the debt, but he would see how to solve that when the time came. Now what worried him was Stannis and his war. Jon had sworn to take no part in any conflict between the Seven Kingdoms, but then he had broken that oath to make another one: to help Stannis with his cause, in return for his help at the Wall.

And Jon had helped Stannis: he had told him how to recruit the mountain clans for his cause, and he had called the banners, of which the Umbers and Mormonts had answered. He had also recruited Karhold's forces, by means of Alys Karstark. Now they had found Rickon, and he had ceded to him all the rights and titles he had previously accepted for himself, the only exception being the title of 'Warden of the North'. Jon had accepted to keep that one until Rickon was of age, because a boy couldn't have the duty and responsibility of commanding an army. Then Jon was going to be the one who dealt with the issues related to the war in the North, and who commanded the armies of the bannermen that remained loyal to House Stark.

But his alliance with Stannis compelled him to answer Ramsay's offensive letter. The only reason why he hadn't yet marched to Winterfell as he had announced he would was Sansa's arrival. Jon had decided to put off his departure for a week in order to speak with his sister, and find out what had happened to her and what she was looking for at the Wall. After that he had received a raven from Stannis, from which Jon learned that the King was alive, but that he hadn't been able to take Winterfell because the snow didn't let his army move. Thus, Jon decided to wait even more: until the ice storm stopped, or until Stannis succeeded in his conquest without his help. After that, when he had established another date for setting off, the letter of the betrothed of 'Alayne' arrived, informing that he was sailing for the Wall with a small army from the Vale. It was then that he decided to postpone his setting out once more, until Harrold Hardying arrived.

During that time he had tried to care for his family, helping his siblings with their important decisions and spending some time with them when he could. They had dinner together in Jon's chambers once a week and they also joined Rickon regularly with his dinners with the queen (except for Arya, who couldn't stand the queen and grew bored in her company). Jon had started to train his little brother in arms, and they had learned to trust in each other as they spent time together. Arya practiced with him once in a while too, and when they were together he felt almost as if they were back in Winterfell, and sometimes he could even forget for a minute everything that had happened since then. With Sansa it was harder, because they were together only when they had dinner, and Sansa pretended to be Alayne when she was with the queen. But that was about to be fixed.

Jon spent a long time in the practice yard, to train both himself and Rickon. But he also devoted time to the study of maps and battle strategies, because he lacked experience in those things and the time of his departure was drawing near. In his free time he wandered around Castle Black, supervising his sworn brothers' and the wildling's work. That's what he was doing then. After checking on the Wall's upkeep's work he started walking to the armory to evaluate the progress in the fabrication of new weapons, and in his way he found his sister with the princess. They were sitting on a bench in a gallery, outside the castle, because it was a relatively nice day and, considering that now it was winter, it was too infrequent to waste staying inside. The girls were embroidering a fabric while they talked. Jon approached them and asked them how they were.

"We are fine, Lord Stark. How nice of you to ask. Lady Alayne is teaching me to embroider my House's new sigil."

"Very well, princess. I think I'm going to leave you then, so that you can continue," Jon said, starting to leave.

"There is no need, Lord Jon. Your presence doesn't bother me. Besides…I wanted to ask you something," Shireen told him shyly.

"As you wish, Your Grace," he agreed, sitting beside them. "You may ask me whatever you want, and I'll answer you as well as I can."

"My question is: have you talked with my mother about a betrothal?"

"I haven't, my princess. I haven't asked for your hand, and she hasn't offered me any engagement," he replied, confused by the question.

"She doesn't mean a betrothal with you," Sansa intervened. "Shireen wants to know whether she will be betrothed to Rickon."

"Well, I haven't talked with the queen about that, either. We just agreed in that she will bring him up as her ward. Of course, in the future she may try to make an engagement between you, but for the moment we haven't discussed that possibility. Would you like to be betrothed to my brother, Your Grace?"

Shireen blushed and looked down. "I don't know. I want to get married someday, to someone who loves me and is kind to me. Few people have ever been interested in me, and Rickon is one of them. I might be happy with him, if he is also happy with me. But if he didn't love me, I wouldn't want the betrothal either."

"Well princess, you'll have plenty of time to know each other and find out if you want to join in marriage or just be friends while my brother is your mother's ward. The decision is yours, and I won't be the one who makes it."

"May I ask you something, Lord Jon?" He nodded. "Please, don't tell Rickon I have asked you this."

"Don't worry: I won't tell anyone about this. Fare well with the embroidery," Jon said. He said good bye to Sansa and rose again to leave.

It wasn't his business, but he really wanted Shireen to find somebody who cared for her. He would prefer it to be someone other than Rickon, but if he was the one who loved her most, Jon wasn't like to oppose him.

He resumed his way to the armory, which was in the same tower as his chambers. There were many stewards and rangers working there, because Jon had decided they needed more weapons, now that the Free Folk would fight with them. Though the common weapons didn't work against the Others, they were useful against the wights. They showed him the work they had done, and seeing that it was noticeable considering that they had only been working on that for a few days he let them know they were doing a good job, told them to keep working, and left.

He went to his room and was greeted by Ghost, who approached him silently, and Mormont's raven, which flew to him and landed on his shoulder, screaming "Snow" repeatedly. The bird didn't know that he was now a Stark. Sam had trained it to say "Snow", which had been his surname when they met. Jon wondered what had happened to him, maester Aemon and Gilly, the wildling girl that had gone with them. If everything had gone as planned, they should have arrived in the Citadel a long time ago. But Jon hadn't had news of them since they departed, and that worried him. He hoped that their ship hadn't sunk, and that they had got safely to their destiny. He patted his direwolf softly and then sat on his desk, picking a history book he had previously taken from the library.

He browsed and searched for successful battle strategies. If he was lucky he might find any that could help him retake Winterfell. In this case Jon supposed that the best thing would be a quick attack, because it would be impossible to siege the castle for enough time to make the enemy yield. After reading for a while without finding any interesting information he decided that he'd make an attack plan on the go. Surely Robb had done it that way, as he hadn't had time to make a research about attack strategies in a library. And Robb had won all the battles he had fought.

Thinking about Robb made him sad. Jon remembered the last time they had seen each other, before he left for the Wall. " _The next time I see you, you'll be all in black_ ," his brother had told him. They had been so sure that they'd meet again!

Jon set those thoughts aside, because lingering in what he had lost wouldn't take him anywhere. He thought of the family he had left, and in their future. If the gods were good, Sansa would marry her betrothed and rule the Vale by his side. Arya may stay at the Wall, or leave it, if she wanted. She could get married, or she could go back to Winterfell, after the war. Or, if she stayed, she could actually join the Watch, as she had wanted from the beginning. But she wouldn't be a ranger anymore; Jon wouldn't allow it. She could be a steward, though, or even a wandering crow, when the war ended.

And Jon, he could also get married, but he hadn't thought about that very much. He hadn't thought of any girl since Ygritte. Stannis and Selyse wanted him to marry Val, but Jon knew that a marriage between them would not change the wildlings' minds, and Val wouldn't like it one bit, because she didn't believe in political marriages, so he didn't find any reason to do it.

He heard someone knocking the door, and told them to come in. It was Satin, his steward, who had come to tell him that a raven had come from the Citadel. Jon was relieved, because at last he had word from his friend, and eagerly took the letter Satin handed him.

The would-be-maester wrote in his letter that he hadn't been able to write previously because the archmaesters hadn't allowed him to send ravens from the Citadel to the Wall because of the Watch's alliance with Stannis, thinking that he was going to intervene in the war, which was something the maesters weren't allowed to do. In the end he had been able to send the letter by letting the archmaesters read it and check it before sending it. Sam had arrived in Oldtown, and he had already forged 2 links of his chain, while Gilly had been accepted by Sam's mother, and she was going to bring up Mance Rayder's son in Horn Hill. But not all the news were good: Daeron had deserted and maester Aemon was dead. Sam also said that he had talked to a maester and a novice about the problems at the Wall, and that they had believed him, but that he didn't dare tell more people yet, because he was afraid of them believing him to be a madman.

Receiving the letter with all those news relieved him, but he couldn't rejoice in his friend's achievements. Aemon's death, of which he felt responsible, didn't allow him that.

 **Author note:** we are now slowly getting to the end of the story. There are some more chapters after this one, but not many. Is anyone still reading this? If you are, I would love to receive your review!


	19. Sansa II

**Sansa**

With patience and concentration, Sansa knitted a woolen muffler, as she taught the young princess how to do it. Her student listened attentively to her instructions, and she seemed to like the activity. Her work wasn't as fine as Sansa's, but it was more than acceptable. Sansa was almost an expert with wool, because she had worn it and knitted it many times in Winterfell, and as she knew it would be useful during the winter, she had decided to teach Shireen how to do it.

Both the queen and her people had been civil with Sansa and accepted her presence, because she knew how to behave the way everybody expected her to. She remembered her courtesies, always dressed properly, according to her status as the bastard daughter of an important lord, and she remained quiet most of the time because, though she had learned one or two things about politics in her time in the Vale, she knew it was better to keep it to herself and appear to be innocent.

Thereby the queen thought that 'Alayne' would make a good companion for her daughter and asked her to teach Shireen the feminine arts. Sansa gladly accepted the responsibility. She liked the princess, even though she wasn't at all pretty. She was a shy and sad girl, but also kind and smart. As every child, she needed love, and she seldom received it. She found in Sansa both a teacher and a friend. And this 'task' was for Sansa much more easy and pleasant tan looking after 'her step-brother'.

Shireen told Sansa of her wish to marry someone who loved her and be happy with him. She talked to her about her fears that her father arranged a political marriage for her, and that her husband didn't love her, or even that he despised her because of her looks. Sansa almost cried for that girl, remembering that when she was her age, her dream had been to marry a golden haired prince in shining armor and to be her princess, as their parents had agreed. What an ignorant child she had been! And how right was the princess to be worried! But Sansa preferred to calm the young girl down, instead of admitting that her fears were well founded.

Sansa had told her about her own life too. Or either, about Alayne's. She told her she had grown up without a family until she turned 13, when she decided she didn't want to be a septa and sought out her father, Lord Baelish. She told her that he had received her in his house, and that when her father got married, Lady Lysa had accepted her too. She told her that she had a step-brother, Robert Arryn, whom she had looked after since he had become an orphan. Shireen told her then that she had met the boy and that her father had talked about bringing him to Dragonstone as his ward, before Jon Arryn's death. At last, Sansa told her about her betrothal to Harrold Hardying and her own insecurities about her prospective marriage. And, as she talked to Shireen, she thought about Arya. She was of the princess's age, and she was her sister. But Sansa couldn't talk about this with her, because Arya would never share her opinions, fears or hopes about marriage. Getting married had never been in her plans.

As they knitted their mufflers, Shireen talked to Sansa about her best friend, Devan, and her new friend and playmate, Lyra. The latter had taken some embroidery lessons with Sansa, but she wasn't as good as Shireen, partly because she was younger, but also because she had never embroidered before. She had talked to her in several occasions, and she knew she was a curios and enthusiastic girl, but she was also a little wild and messy. Sansa hadn't met Devan, though, so she only knew about him what the princess told her.

Shireen also talked about little Rickon. Whispering, she told her that he had come into her room about a fortnight before, and that they had played monsters-and-maidens until dinner time. She confessed that they had done it many times after that, and that they played a different game almost every night. Last evening, she confided, they had jumped on the bed until the sheets were on the floor, as they tried to make the other one fall. And when Shireen fell, Rickon had jumped down next to her and tickled her armpits until she was breathless with laughter. She had got up then and tickled him back, and they had played 'tickle fight' the rest of the evening.

Sansa didn't want to scold the young girl for such an innocent mischief, but she felt it was her responsibility, as she was the only one who knew about it and could do it. So she told Shireen that it shouldn't happen again, that a bed was no place for playing, even less so with a boy, and that if he tried to do it again she should explain him that it was unseemly and tell him to leave. She was telling her that when they were interrupted by the boy in question, who was accompanied by his sister Arya.

"Sansa, your betrothed is here!" Rickon shouted, excited. "He has come with an army, marching from Eastwatch by the Sea!"

"Sansa? Why did he call you that, Alayne?" Shireen asked, confused.

"Because he's stupid and forgot that her name is Alayne," Arya said, evidently angry with her brother.

"Arya! Don't insult Rickon. Insulting someone only serves to make him angry," Sansa told her, trying to avoid an unnecessary fight between her siblings. "Rickon, that was very unwise of you. Promise me it won't happen again," she reprimanded him nonetheless.

"I promise, S… Alayne," he said, staring at the floor in shame.

"Good. The damage is already done, though," Sansa sighed. "Shireen, you are a smart girl, and I don't think you will forget this. And anyway, I was going to tell you someday: I was planning to reveal myself to everybody in Castle Black. The only thing that will change now is that you will know it before the others. Can you promise to keep the secret I will tell you, and let me be the one who reveals it in its due time?"

"I promise," Shireen said, somewhat surprised by the question's solemnity.

"My real name is Sansa Stark. My parents were Lord Eddard Stark and Lady Catellyn Tully. Arya and Rickon are my siblings. And Jon, too.

There was a silence, while Shireen assimilated Sansa's revelation. "So, everything you told me about yourself was a lie?" The princess asked, surprised and disappointed.

"Not everything," she clarified. "Lord Baelish helped me escape from King's Landing some moon turns ago, and I have been living in the Vale since then. Everything I told you about what happened in The Fingers, the Eyrie and the Gates of the Moon did really happen, while I pretended to be Petyr's daughter. And my betrothal is also real, but Harry, as well as all the lords of the Vale except for Baelish, believes that I am Alayne. Petyr Baelish's plan was to reveal my identity in my wedding, and convince Harrold to take the North in my behalf."

"It sounds like a good plan. Will you carry it out?" The girl asked, curious.

"No. I will ask Harry to command the Vale's hosts to fight against the Others first. And after that, if the men haven't seen enough horror and death yet, I will ask him to declare for your father, because of all the men who are trying to win the Iron Throne he is, in my opinion, the only one who cares enough about Westeros to deserve to sit on it. However, we have yet to see if my betrothed will hear me and do as I wish."

"And why wouldn't he? If he is a good man, he will respect you and he will want to please you, because you are to be his wife."

"And that is precisely the problem. I don't know if I will be able to wed him, because I am already married. I am Sansa Lannister now, wife to Lord Tyrion Lannister. My marriage can be nullified by the High Septon, because it wasn't consummated, but I cannot go to King's Landing and reveal my identity. If he helps me, though, I will do whatever I can to be able to marry him."

"You can convert to R'hllor's faith. Melisandre would surely nullify your marriage, and she would wed you to him. The marriage would be accepted as valid by everyone who accepts my father as the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms." Shireen suggested.

"I will think about it. But now it is time for me to meet my betrothed. And for that, I need you to act as if I was Alayne. Will you?"

All of them nodded, and they went with her out of the castle, where Jon was greeting the knights of the Vale.

"Do you know where Alayne is, Lord Commander? Why has she asked me to bring an army to the Wall?" Sansa heard that Harry asked Jon. "It was too cold and stormy to march from the Vale, and we don't have so many ships, but I managed to bring 3000 men with me. Most of them are young knights, trained and ready to fight. But I would like to see lady Alayne, and learn what she would have me do."

"She will soon come to meet you, Lord Hardying. I am certain that she will explain you everything."

"Here I am, my dear Harry," Sansa announced herself. "Lord Stark, I would thank you very much if you could find a place to accommodate the men of the Vale, and if you could give them something to eat and drink, because they have been traveling for long."

"Lady Alayne, I will fetch a steward to see to whatever your men may need."

"Thank you, Lord Stark." Sansa said with a small curtsy. "Follow me, Harry, for there is much that I need to tell you.

"As you wish, my lady."

Sansa guided him to her chambers. There was a room next to her bedroom with a little wooden table and 2 chairs, one in front of the other. Sansa sat on one of them and motioned for Harrold to do the same.

"Well, here I am: with you, at the Wall, and with as many knights and men at arms as I could bring with the ships of the Vale. May I ask you then, my dear Alayne, why have you asked me to do this? Your father and I were very worried when you made this unexplainable trip to the Wall. Maester Colemon told us that you wished to help the Night's Watch, and that they were preparing to fight a very dangerous enemy that threatened all of Westeros, but when we inquired about the nature of this enemy he started mumbling nonsensical things about Others. Lord Nestor and Myranda said they knew nothing about it, but that they guessed it was the new King-Beyond-the-Wall." Hardying didn't look annoyed, but rather curious and a little worried, which relieved Sansa.

"Harrold, there is something I must tell you. I am not the one you think I am. I will marry you as I promised I would, if you still want me after my confession, but you must know this before: I am not Alayne Stone. She doesn't exist. She is only a fake identity Lord Baelish told me to assume to save me. He isn't my father. He is just my protector."

"And who are you then, my lady, if not Alayne Stone?"

"The name they gave me when I was born is Sansa Stark. The Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, who met you when you arrived, is my brother, Jon. I asked you to come here because something terrible is about to happen, and I have heard that the knights of the Vale have wanted to fight in the war ever since it started. There is a very powerful enemy, and we will need brave men to fight it," Sansa explained him.

"Will you ask me to declare for Stannis and defeat the enemies of your House, the Lannisters? I would, and gladly, dear Sansa. But now that I know the truth, I won't be able to marry you until your husband dies," he said, sounding disappointed and a bit annoyed.

"Actually, you won't need to wait for Tyrion's death, if Stannis wins the war before that happens. I am still a maiden, and as soon as I can go to King's Landing without being taken captive I will be able to ask the High Septon to nullify my marriage. Besides, if you aren't devoted to the Seven, there is a priestess here, of a god called R'hllor, who would surely agree to nullify my marriage on her own and marry us here," Sansa said, brightening him.

"I would prefer to wait until the war is won, my lady. That way we can wed wherever we want, with the witness and the blessings of the Seven. I am willing to marry you before the war is over, before a weirwood and following your father's traditions too, if you wish, but that god of fire has nothing to do with us. I am not an especially devout man, but I believe in the seven, even though I rarely remember to pray to them. I shall speak to your brother, to learn where I may find King Stannis. I will join my men with his, and we will end this war once and for all."

"Actually, Harry, that isn't what I would like you to do. Stannis is trying to retake Winterfell, my House's ancestral seat. You can send some men to help him in that mission, and to swear loyalty to him in your name and in Robert's, but there is something more important here."

"And what is that, my lady? If you will always be so mysterious I will never grow bored of you, even if we lived forever together as husband and wife," Harry said, amused, and Sansa's lips curved into a small smile.

"I don't dare tell you here, where we are alone, because you won't believe me. You will say I am mad as soon as you hear me say it. But if you come with me to talk with my brother Jon, he will tell you everything."

Intrigued, her betrothed followed her to the Lord Commander's chambers. He let them in and invited them to have a seat.

"Jon, I have already told Harry who I am. I brought him here so that you can tell him who the real enemy is, to find out if he is willing to fight it. I would have told him myself, but I thought he wouldn't believe me alone," she said, gravely.

"The true enemies of the Night's Watch and of men, Ser Harrold, are the Others. You will find it hard to believe us, because you haven't seen them, and you must have heard of them only in the stories they told you as a child, but they are real. And when the white walkers come this side of the Wall, the war between the kingdoms will be just a summer game compared to the constant and painful battle we will have to fight to survive this long winter," Jon explained, with the same solemnity.

Sansa looked at Harry, whose expression changed from disbelief to acceptance, and then to fear. After that, he took a deep breath and announced his decision on the matter. She smiled, thanked him wholeheartedly and prayed for true knights to be real, and for her betrothed to be one of them.

 **Author Note:** I'm sorry for the delay in this update, but I went on holidays for the past 2 weeks and found no time to write. Don't worry, though: now I'll go back to my weekly update policy, so this fic will be complete in about a month. I hope you enjoy what is left of it!


	20. Arya VI

**Arya**

She hugged her brother tightly, and said goodbye to him. They would meet again soon, Jon told her in an attempt to reassure her. And they probably would, but there was no way of knowing it for certain. He was marching, as he had been planning for a long time, to Winterfell. Tormund's wildlings were going with him, and 500 men from the Vale too, at Harry's command. But Harrold himself would stay at the Wall with the rest of his men, to defend it in case the Others attacked.

Sansa had publicly revealed her identity, and she had washed the dye off her hair. Now they all treated her with a deference only surpassed by the one they showed the queen and Melisandre. She was flawlessly dressed with a beautiful blue gown that matched her eyes, but it was simpler than what she had worn in King's Landing, because the clothes she had brought to the Wall were the ones she had worn as Alayne. Her hairstyle, however, was elaborate, because the queen had put one of her handmaids to her disposition as soon as she learned of Lady Alayne's true identity. Her eyes were a bit watery, but she hadn't shed tears.

Rickon was wearing breeches and a tunic he had borrowed from Devan, and he had a heavy cloak above it that looked too big for him. He looked sad, because he had already started to see Jon as a brother, and Arya knew he really loved him. He wasn't crying, but his bleak expression showed it clearly. Jon tried to cheer them all, but Arya knew he didn't like to have to leave his family (or what was left of it) again.

"Don't worry, Rickon. I'll be back soon, I promise. You'll see: I will retake Winterfell, and when the war is over you will live there, at home. Winterfell and the North will be yours."

"'I'll be back soon', you say. That's what Robb said when he left. 'I'll be back soon, and I'll bring mum back with me'. But he didn't come back, and now I won't see him again, or mum," said the boy, who now seemed to be about to start crying.

"But Jon will really come back. He has already faced much worse things beyond the Wall. He will survive this battle, and he will come back to Castle Black, where he belongs," Sansa assured him, sounding convinced.

Arya remained silent, because she didn't find any reason to lie, and the truth was unknown. Her eyes went moist when Jon gave her one last hug and whispered "Fare well, little sister, until our roads meet again", but she dried them with her sleeve, and nodded slightly. Finally, he mounted on his horse and marched off, with the rest of the leaving party following him.

When they disappeared from sight in the horizon, Arya looked away from the road and made for the winch elevator, because she had the watch on top of the Wall. At the beginning of her watch, Arya told herself that everything would be fine. She repeated to herself over and over again that Jon wouldn't have need of her, and that she was better in Castle Black than fighting for Winterfell, but she couldn't convince herself.

She had already been through the terrible experience of losing her family, and she had worked very hard to find Jon again. She couldn't stand by and let him leave her just like that. If there was a way she could follow him without them stopping her… And then she knew. She was going to need somebody's help, but that couldn't be so hard to get. As the hours of her watch went by, she designed her plan.

When the watch turn changed, Arya went silently to the kitchen and stole many loaves of bread and a bottle full of water without being seen. She put them in a bag that she left in her room, and then she went to the yard, where she practiced her swordplay with Rickon, Keit and Devan, the last one being the only one that posed a real challenge for her.

When she practiced with her brother, she told him her plan. She could see the excitement in his eyes when she told him quickly and in whispers what it consisted in. But he was visibly disappointed when Arya told him the part she wanted him to play in it. She had to ask him many times before he accepted. And even when he did, he seemed offended to be left behind. Arya reminded him then that he was the queen's ward, and that she would realize too soon if Rickon went missing.

That night, at midnight, both of them went out of their rooms, and they met outside the armory. They hugged one last time, whispered some parting words, and Arya gave Rickon one of the horns that the watch used to announce the coming of rangers, wildlings and, of late, Others. He went to the Wall, and she went to the armory to pick a crossbow and some quarrels. After that she went to her room to pick up her bag, and she waited for the sign.

It came in a few minutes: three long blows, one following the other. Arya waited a bit more, until all the men of the castle had heard and, in consequence, were going to the Wall to fight, or cowering in Castle Black. When she considered that enough time had passed, she went to the stables, which were deserted, saddled a horse, and set off in a fast gallop, decided not to stop until she saw, in the distance, the campfires of Jon's army.

As soon as she saw the fires and the tents in the horizon she stopped her horse and tied it to a tree by the Kingsroad. She didn't want to go near them, yet. She would have time for that later, when they got further away from the Wall and they couldn't send her back to Castle Black. She sat on the grass, ate some bread and drank some water from her bottle before she went to sleep, using her cloak as a bed.

For a week, her routine was always the same: walking the Kingsroad during the day, sleeping at night and, from the third day on, looking for food and water whenever she could. That was really hard at the beginning, but on the fifth day of her journey she reached the Last River, and she could recharge her bottle. Besides, that same night she found the wolfwood, where she could hunt a rabbit with her crossbow. That night she managed, with great effort, to light a small fire to cook it.

After the first week she started to go nearer the army, so near that she knew they could see her, if they happened to look attentively in her direction. However, she didn't dare show herself openly until the third week. It was the eighteenth day of her journey, and she camped only 100 feet behind them. As it was to be expected, they saw her, and a group of wildlings approached her to find out who she was. They recognized her at once and took her to Jon. He was surprised, and visibly angry.

"Arya! Oh, gods! What are you doing here?"

"I'm riding to Winterfell. I'll go with you, wherever you go. You are my pack, aren't you?"

"Aye, Arya. But I would have liked to be able to ride to battle knowing that my little sister is safe…"

"Safe at the Wall, fighting against the Others?" Arya cut him off. "Accept it, Jon: nobody is safe now. And if I had to choose where to risk my life, my choice will be where you are. Besides, I want to know that you are well, too, and the only way I can know is if I am with you."

"Fine, Arya," he accepted with a sigh. "But when the time to fight comes, you will stay out of it, in the camp."

Arya agreed, and she was invited to sleep in Jon's tent. They were together for the rest of the journey, until they got to a small town near Winterfell. A 3 days ride, in normal circumstances. It wasn't snowing, but the ground was covered with snow because of the last ice storm, and riding there was hard. It would take them more than that to reach the castle then, Arya guessed.

But instead of moving forward, they camped there. They found some of Stannis's men in the houses and towers. Jon asked to speak to whoever that was in charge, and Arya could hear the conversation.

"Lord Commander, I am Ser Justin Massey. His Grace left me in charge of the provisions and of the men who remained here. Most of them are sick or wounded, but there are prisoners too. And Lady Alysanne Mormont is also here, with your sister."

"My sister? I don't think it could be…" Jon started to say, but Ser Justin stopped him.

"Yes, your sister Arya is here. We haven't taken Winterfell yet, but she managed to escape and get to us. With Theon Greyjoy's help, of course. He's here too, as a prisoner of King Stannis."

That surprised Arya: someone had claimed to be her. She wondered who that girl was, and why she was pretending to be Arya. Especially considering that she had had to lie, and say that she was another person, because her identity endangered her life.

"Very well, Ser Justin. Bring Arya to me, please. And I'd also like to have a word with Theon Greyjoy," Jon asked.

"I'll bring your sister at once, Lord Stark. After that I can take you to see Greyjoy, but I can't leave you alone with him. I must make sure that he remains alive, so that His Grace can execute him publicly, and you have far too many reasons to wish to kill him," Massey explained.

Jon accepted that and Ser Justin went away to seek out the girl who claimed to be Arya. She waited in silence for the moment to come in which Jon pointed out the fraud. Some minutes later, the knight reappeared, followed by a dark-haired and brown-eyed girl that walked staring at the floor, presumably aware of the fact that she would soon be discovered and defeated. And Arya knew her: she was Jeyne Poole, the steward's daughter and Sansa's best friend.

"I know the girl," Jon said in a calm voice. "But her name is not Arya Stark, and she is not my sister. The girl you have brought to me, Ser Justin, is called Jeyne Poole. She was the daughter of my father's steward. She is not my sister, but I would like to take her under my protection all the same."

"I'm so sorry, Lord Stark. We were so sure… It wasn't my intention to give you false hopes."

"You didn't, ser. I knew right from the beginning that you didn't have my sister, for Arya has traveled with me from the Wall. She is here," Jon revealed.

"It's me: Arya, of House Stark," she announced herself.

After Jon gave Justin a quick explanation about how Arya had turned up in Castle Black, they started to interrogate Jeyne.

"Tell me, Jeyne. Why did you tell them you were my sister?" Jon asked her sternly.

"They made me do it. Lord Tywin Lannister sent me to Winterfell to… to marry Ramsay. They told me to say… that I was Arya. They threatened me... Theon told me… told me that I mustn't… that I mustn't forget… mi name. 'You are Arya Stark', he said. He forgot his… and Ramsay… he…-Jeyne broke off then, and she burst into tears. Arya understood that she had been forced to pose as her, and that it hadn't been her idea. It seemed that she had been through terrible situations, and Arya pitied her.

"It's fine, Jeyne. Don't worry, you are not in trouble for this," Jon tried to calm her. "Massey, could you please escort Jeyne back to her room? And Arya too: Jeyne must be the most adequate roommate for her, here. And after that, take me to see Greyjoy, please," Jon asked him.

They took them to a big room with 2 beds, and the knight set a mattress on the floor, because without Arya there were already 2 people in that room: Jeyne Poole and Alysanne Mormont. Alysanne was kind, and offered to sleep on the mattress, so that Arya could have her bed. Arya only accepted after the woman insisted. Jeyne told Arya what had happened to her, with Alysanne's help in the most traumatic moments of her story.

And Arya learned then that Jeyne had lost her father too, that she had been trained in a brothel and forced to marry a terrible man that mistreated her, and that she feared she was pregnant with his child. In turn, Arya told her that Sansa and Rickon were alive and in the Wall, and that she could see them when Stannis retook Winterfell and they came back, or she could travel to the Wall with Arya. That helped Jeyne to pull herself together enough to sleep, and Arya and Alysanne fell asleep soon after.

The next morning, Jon and Arya broke their fast together, and she asked him why he had wanted to speak with Theon.

"I wanted an explanation. I have never liked Theon, but I would never have imagined that he would do what he did. Besides, I always thought he was fond of Robb."

"And what did he say?"

"He told me that he had just wanted to belong somewhere. That, as he knew he would never be a Stark, he tried to prove that he could be a Greyjoy, and that is why he took Winterfell. He told me that he knows it was the worst mistake he could ever have made, and that if he could choose again, he would rather die in the Red Wedding with Robb."

"Do you believe him?"

"I do. Theon tried to mock me and laugh at my questions at the beginning, but when I told him that I knew that Bran and Rickon were alive he couldn't meet my eyes any longer. It was then that he told me this."

"Will you forgive him?" Arya asked. She trusted her brother's judgment, so she truly believed that Theon was sorry. But as sorry as he could be, she believed that the man who had grown up with her brothers and had then betrayed them in that horrible way didn't deserve to be forgiven.

"No, I won't. I can't forgive him, because it's not me whom he betrayed. Robb was his king, and his best friend: it's to him that he should apologize. And to Bran, to Rickon, and to the boys he killed to pass them for our brothers. I don't think that Theon will be forgiven until he dies, and maybe not even when he is dead."

She didn't ask anything else, and they stayed silent for a while. Now that she knew this, Arya pitied Theon. He had lost his family a long time ago, and when he got it back, they had rejected him. The only thing he had wanted was to be part of a pack, like the one of the Starks, but he had ended up being hated by everyone. She hoped they would give him a quick painless death, which was the best thing she could wish for him.

Sometime later Jon parted from her, to ride to Winterfell. This time she didn't follow him, and waited patiently to hear from him instead, as she had promised that she would.

 **Author Note:** well, now that we are so close to the end, I'd like to make a confession. The truth is that I am quite good at starting fics, but not so good at finishing them. But don't worry: I have it all written, and will publish the following chapters soon. I'm only telling you this because I had a problem when writing the ending. The problem is that it is fast-forwarded. It means that a lot of time goes by in very little chapters, and many major events take place off-page. This is because it was my first fic,and I was not confident enough to write battle scenes yet, and also because I thought the fic was long enough as it was. Well, I hope that doesn't ruin the story for you.

Now, as to 's comment, I don't know if you were criticizing my last chapter or all the fic. Anyway, the Starks have been away from each other for a long time, without even knowing whether the others were alive. It would be just normal if they felt like they were acting to be a family instead of actually being one at the beginning. With Sansa it's even worse, because she still had to pretend to be Alayne, and act for real. You are right about me being an introvert, though.


	21. Rickon VI

**Rickon**

He had hidden after blowing the horn, so nobody knew, in that moment, that it had been him. Everybody got angry for being awoken by the alarm with no reason, but there was no one to blame. Arya's absence went unnoticed until the following day, and no one worried about her at the beginning. Most of them believed that she had gone for a ride or that she was making some mischief or taking a break from work, because even though it was unusual of her, she was still a young girl, and not a particularly well-behaved one.

When she was 2 days gone, Sansa asked for a searching party to be sent to look for her in the surroundings, and her betrothed agreed to send his men to find Arya. He went himself too, but returned that same night, frustrated and empty-handed. Some men started to say that she had run away in fear of the dangers of the North and that neither she nor Jon meant to get back to the Wall. They started to call them deserters, because though Arya was a girl and not of the Night's Watch anymore, she always wore black men clothes and had lived and worked beside them, which the men seemed to think was not enough to consider her their sworn brother when she was there, but still permitted them to call her a deserter when she left.

"They're all cowards, those Starks. The bastard went to Winterfell, abandoning his post, and so did his sister. I'd wager that Benjen was another deserter: he vanished, leaving no trace, and they never found his body. But they did find the ones of the men that had gone with him. I dare say he killed them himself, like Snow did with Qhorin Halfhand. At least, I hope that Marsh doesn't allow the deserters to go unpunished. As soon as Jon and Arya are found, they should pay for their crimes," Ser Alliser Thorne said, at dinner, when Arya was 5 days gone.

Rickon decided that he wasn't going to allow them to call his siblings cowards and deserters. Not in his presence, at least. He rose from his table and walked to him while the knight spoke, and when he finished talking, he said: "I command you to withdraw everything you said about my family. You are the coward, insulting brave men when they aren't there, and mocking them when they can't defend themselves. If my brother was here, you wouldn't dare insult him." Rickon started saying this in a relatively low voice, but he raised it as he spoke, and in the end he was almost shouting and everyone there was staring at him. "Besides, nothing that you said is true. Jon will come back when he gets Winterfell back, and Arya will come back with him. She went after him. I blew the horn, to divert everyone and let her escape. She will return when Jon does." As Rickon spoke, Shaggydog came running to him and stood by his side, looking menacingly at Thorne and baring its teeth. "So I command you to withdraw what you said, or I will warg into Shaggydog to see how your blood tastes."

Ser Alliser's face was unusually pale, and he seemed paralyzed with dread, to the point of being unable to reply. Everyone remained silent for some seconds, until Sansa dared break it:

"Rickon! I can perfectly understand that you wish to defend our family's honor, but it's intolerable for you to threaten people with sending your direwolf to attack them. That's no way to behave," his sister reproached him.

"You are right, Lady Sansa, that's no way to behave for a Lord. As the boy is my ward, I will find an appropriate punishment for him myself," Queen Selyse said.

The punishment was going to bed without his dinner, and the prohibition of bringing Shaggydog to the common hall again. Besides, he received another punishment for blowing the horn. It consisted in 5 hard blows in his back, given by the queen's uncle. But though Rickon's behavior greatly annoyed the adults, Lyra, Shireen and Devan seemed to admire him for his boldness.

Some days after that the incident was forgotten, and everything went back to normal, except that now nobody dared speak ill of the Starks when Rickon was around. The rest of the month went on without any important event for him, between games, lessons with maester Pylos and training sessions. One night the horn was blown thrice, but the wights that attacked were so few that the fighting was done even before most of the men got ready to face them.

At the end of the moon's turn he received the information they all had been waiting for since Jon went off. He was having one of master Pylos's lessons, with Shireen, Devan and Lyra, when Sansa interrupted them.

"Excuse me, maester, may I speak with my brother?"

"Of course you may, my lady."

"Rickon, there was a letter from Jon. He says he is near Winterfell, and that he found some of Stannis's knights camping. He is with Arya, as you said. He believes they will soon retake the castle and be able to return. He also wrote that they have found my friend, Jeyne Poole, and Theon Greyjoy, too."

"What does he say about him? I hope they kill him, because he deserves it."

"He says that he is now Stannis's prisoner. And yes, I think they will execute him soon. But that isn't what matters: Jon and Arya are fine, and they will get our home back. That is what matters."

Rickon nodded, and Sansa kissed his cheek before she left, making him blush so much that he thought the color of his face might match his hair's. A week later, another raven arrived, this time from Stannis. This letter announced that they had achieved the victory in Winterfell, and they had taken the Boltons as prisoners. Jon was going to stay in Winterfell for some time, as castellan, with some of the men of the Vale that had gone with him and some northmen, to defend the castle and start rebuilding it. The rest of them would go back to the Wall as soon as they could.

Almost a whole moon's turn went by before Arya came back with the others, including Stannis. The moment he arrived, the king announced he would hold court that very afternoon, after lunchtime. The queen, then, insisted in Rickon and Shireen being presentable for the occasion. They bathed, dressed up hastily and ate together. After that, Selyse guided them to the Great Hall in the King's Tower, where the court would be held. They sat in the first row of seats, as befitted the royal family and their ward. Lyra sat with them, too.

When the audience started Rickon was nervous, because he had never been to one. He glanced at Shireen and noticed that she seemed quiet, seated still and silent, looking at her father. He decided to imitate her and feign quietness.

The first discussed matter was the treatment the prisoners would receive. One by one, they were called before the king, the situation of each of them was laid out, and then Stannis spoke with his advisors, mainly with Davos and Melisandre, and passed a sentence.

The first prisoner to be condemned was Roose Bolton. Accused of betraying his previous king, Robb Stark, causing his death, Stannis considered that he should be punished, and that he didn't deserve the option of kneeling before him and receiving his pardon in exchange for his loyalty, because his word couldn't be trusted. The verdict was a public execution, before the weirwoods beyond the Wall.

The next prisoner was his son Ramsay, who hadn't only betrayed Robb, but had to answer for other crimes too, as the fraud of the 'fake Arya', the rape of young Jeyne Poole, who was also present in the audience, and the illicit torture of Theon Greyjoy, to whom he had cut off many fingers and toes, after having flayed them to increase his pain. Stannis's decision this time was to hand him to Melisandre to burn him in a fire. It would be both a public execution and an offering to R'hllor. The idea of being burned to death made Rickon shudder, but he guessed this man deserved it.

After that, the accused was Theon. Stannis explained that he had planned to execute him when he believed him to have murdered Bran and Rickon, but now that he knew it wasn't true, he wasn't so certain. His crimes were: betraying Robb, murdering 2 innocent children and faking 2 young lords' deaths. When he consulted his advisors, Melisandre proposed to make him kneel to Stannis and serve him as a soldier, being expropriated of all lands and titles he possessed. Davos, on the other hand, said it would be better to allow him to take the black, but he agreed with expropriating him of his birthright.

"Theon, kneel before me," Stannis commanded him and Theon obeyed. "What I am judging in this court are your poor and disloyal decisions. Many times you made the wrong choice, but it was you who made it. Now I offer you, one more time, the choice to decide your fate. As you were free to sin, so are you to choose how to atone yourself. You can either join my forces, or that of the Night's Watch."

Theon said he preferred to join the Night's Watch, because he didn't want to fight for any king after having failed both Robb and his father. Stannis accepted his decision, and the matter was settled. The next prisoner whose fate was discussed was Asha Greyjoy. Stannis established that, as she hadn't committed any crime and had already surrendered to him, she would be a hostage until the Greyjoys paid a ransom. In case they didn't pay, Stannis said he would take her back to Pyke after he conquered the Iron Islands and killed Euron Greyjoy, and he would leave her as Lady Paramount of the Iron Islands, because she was now Lord Balon's sole heir. She warned that making the ironborn follow a woman could prove more complicated than Stannis imagined, but she didn't refuse; she was satisfied with the idea of ruling the islands.

Afterwards, the king announced who would get each conquered castle. Selyse made it clear from the beginning that her ward, Rickon, would get Winterfell. The northern lords who fought for him would recover their old lands, the king announced. The Dreadfort and any other castle whose lords had been disloyal would be given to knights loyal to Stannis who had lost their lands during the war, or to younger brothers who couldn't inherit the castles of their houses, but who had fought bravely. The castles of the North would be given to the northmen, while the southorns would get castles in the south, preferably the ones that had belonged to them prior the war. But they didn't deepen very much in the matter, because Stannis finally said that it was pointless to discuss what they should do with something they didn't yet have, and he put an end to the audience.

When he got out, Rickon noticed that it was night, and dinner time. He said goodbye to Shireen when they got to the common hall, and he went with Lyra to the table where Osha and Keit were seated. They were already eating, but they waited for them all the same. Lyra told them in detail about the audience, with Rickon's help. Osha was particularly interested, because she had lived in Winterfell, personally met the Greyjoys, and seen the destruction carried out when Ramsay took the castle.

The following days were quiet. Rickon met Stannis, but he didn't speak with him more than occasionally. It surprised him to notice that Shireen didn't talk very much with her father either. He wondered if it was normal for kings not to pay attention to their children. It could be, he thought. After all, his father had abandoned him in Winterfell when he was 3, and without even being a king.

He was present in the executions of the Boltons, which were the first ones he ever saw. After that, everything went back to normal. And, one month later, Stannis set off again, this time to the Riverlands, to conquer castles and recruit more men for his cause. But that was of little interest to Rickon. He hoped that the King would fare well, but he didn't think very often of what happened out of Castle Black. And, as the war went on far in the south, he was happy in the Wall, with his friends and his sisters. There were more attacks from wights, but at the beginning they were always few, so they didn't scare him.

His carefree childhood ended when he was 8 years old. The war in the south was almost won, but the joy of the king's victories in faraway lands was overshadowed by the fear of the war in the Wall, which was just about to start.

 **Author Note:** I hope the fast forwarded pace of this chapter didn't put you off. The following chapters will be like this too, but there are only 2 more left. If you liked it, please remember that I'd love to read your review!


	22. Bran

**Bran**

He had learned, through much training and the help of his mentor, the last greenseer, to see what the trees had seen and to communicate with people in his dreams. He could also warg into many different animals, and that was the skill he developed more naturally and easily. But Brynden made him focus on the tree dreams, and after some time he could decide exactly what place and what time he wanted to see. This way he saw his brother Jon in Winterfell, and Sansa in her wedding to Harry, before the weirwoods that were beyond the Wall. Because, though at the beginning they had planned to get married in a sept when the war was over, in the end they got tired of waiting, and Bran could watch the ceremony. He also saw Arya, dressed all in black, and much taller than he remembered her. And Rickon, who was growing up happily, with many friends to play with and without having to worry so much about what happened around him.

He also had visions of the past, in which his parents, grandparents and other ancestors appeared. After some time, he got to remember their names, and even feel some affection to them, as if he had really known them.

When he had learned to control his greenseeing powers, he focused in the dream visits, in which he could talk to his siblings. He had already done that once, with Jon. But that time he had done it unintentionally, as his first wolf dreams, and it had been too short to say anything. Now though, he could talk with any of his siblings for as long as he wished, provided that they were asleep.

He talked to Rickon more than to anyone else, as Bran found that it was much easier to stay in his mind than in the ones of his other siblings. He had grown a lot, but he hadn't forgotten him, and he still saw Bran as the older brother who had always been by his side. He told Bran about his problems, asked him for advice, and he also told him of his mischiefs. Sometimes, he would ask Bran how he was, where he was and what he was doing. He tried to explain it to him and, even though Rickon didn't understand everything, he did understand that he was beyond the Wall, learning the 'magic' of the Children of the Forest. Bran even told his little brother some of his visions.

He also visited Jon often, but his mind was always busy, and that shortened the time of the visits. Besides, the first times he got in his dreams, the only thing Jon did was to ask him over and over again if he was alive, where he was, and how could they be talking in a dream. Bran had answered patiently that he was alive and North of the Wall. He also told him that he had the ability to communicate with people in their dreams, the same way as Jon had warg powers. After that, he almost decided to go back North and send a ranging beyond the Wall to look for him. It took Bran a whole night to talk him out of doing that. Finally, after those initial struggles, they were able to talk of other things, and Jon told Bran about the war he was fighting in. When he asked Bran how he was, he replied that safe and sound in a cave, being trained by a greenseer (Bran explained him briefly what 'greenseer' meant), and with some friends from the Neck, who had escaped from Winterfell with him. But he never mentioned the Children of the Forest to him.

Getting into Arya's dreams was easier than reaching Jon. She was now very different to the 9 years old girl he remembered, though. She had seen terrible things, and changed in consequence. It had been difficult for her to understand this way of communication, but she didn't insist in an explanation: knowing that Bran was alive and well was enough for her. She told him how she had succeeded in taking the black and how she had been the first to leave the organization alive, and she spoke of her life in Castle Black, too. He also told her about his life: he let her know that he was living in a cave with Hodor and 2 friends, Jojen and Meera. Bran talked to her about them. Especially about Meera, because he believed that this new Arya who had learned how to fight would surely get on well with her, who was an expert hunter, and the only fighter in his group. He hoped he would meet with his family sometime, and introduce their friends to them.

The hardest thing, though, was talking to Sansa. The girl who had been his sister in Winterfell was now a woman, and very little of what he remembered of her was still the same. Besides, she hadn't even developed skinghanging powers, as her direwolf had been killed before she could do that. Convincing her that he was actually talking to her was more difficult than doing the same with all his other siblings combined. When he finally did it, Sansa had to accept that Bran was talking to her without being given an explanation, because Bran wasn't sure that he could explain it. She talked to him about the political changes at the Wall, her friends and her husband. Bran, in turn, told her of his friends, and somehow, Sansa could perceive that he was in love with Meera. That seemed to interest her, and she tried to convince him, unsuccessfully for the moment, to declare his love for her. The thing was that Bran didn't think that Meera could love him that way. She was much older than him, and he would surely see him like a child. Besides, which girl would like a cripple?

So Bran didn't declare his love to Meera during all the time his training lasted. And it finished when he was already 12 years old. He had awoken one day as any other, waiting for Lord Brynden to give him a lesson as he always did, but the greenseer surprised him completely when he said:

"Bran, you have already learned everything I could teach you. The rest of it you can learn on your own. And though you can stay in this cave with me, if that were your choice, I think the best thing you can do is leave. I have told you that I have ghosts: a brother I loved, a brother I hated, and a woman I desired. But they are only that: ghosts. You, on the other hand, have a family that is still alive. An older brother you admire, a sweet sister, a warrior sister and a younger brother you want to protect. You can fight for them."

"How can I fight? How could I be of use to them, if I can't even walk?"

"You can walk, Bran. Not with your body, but Summer walks."

"Then, do you think I can help them with an army of wolves?"

"You can help with everything you can do. You may scout through ravens, or spy through the trees. You can deliver messages from the Wall to Winterfell through your siblings, when they are asleep. And you can also make an army of wolves to help them."

He went to the Wall with his friends and Summer shortly after that, and Coldhands guided them again. The hardest moment was the last part of the journey. The wights were very near the Wall, and they had to go as quick and silently as possible through the Haunted Forest, to diminish the risks. In spite of all their efforts at precaution, they still had to fight against 3 of them, and Coldhands, Meera and Summer dealt with them. They could defeat them by cutting their arms and heads off, but by the time they accomplished that, one of the wights had pierced Jojen's chest with a knife. The blood that poured out of his wound seemed endless, and Bran didn't know what to do. He heard Meera sob, and he knew that there was no hope for his friend to live.

Jojen didn't cry or scream or curse. He just looked at them as calmly as a dying boy could and asked them to burn him before they resumed their journey. Meera hugged him and wept, and Hodor sat Bran near them too. Tears came running down his cheeks, and there was no way to stop them. He suddenly felt as if he was the one that had been hurt. Just before he died, Jojen said 'farewell' and closed his eyes. He had been expecting that, Bran realized: he had always known the day he was going to die.

After that, Meera had to light the fire, and Bran told Hodor to help her. As she stood in front of the fire weeping while her brother's body burned, he wished he could stand tall and strong beside her. He wished he could hug her, and that she could cry on his shoulder. He wished she could rely on him for support in her grief. Instead, he was sitting on the ground, crying like a baby.

As soon as the fire made certain that Jojen wouldn't rise like a wight, they resumed their way south, hurrying away from it. They got to Castle Black at midnight, and had it been any other castle, no one would have seen them. The horn sounded once, announcing their arrival as though they were rangers, and a small black shape approached them. It was Arya, who had the night shift.

After a tight hug between the 2 of them, and after Bran made the necessary introductions, Arya told them that Jon had come back to Castle Black, because the Others were too close to the Wall, and he was more needed there than in Winterfell. Even though it was technically bad news, this made Bran glad, because it meant he was going to see all his siblings together again.

Arya took them to their rooms to wake them up, and they were very thrilled to see him. Rickon seemed to be the happiest one when he met him, but the others were excited too. They had grown and changed a lot, but as Bran had seen them before, through the weirwoods, he wasn't surprised. Sansa was pregnant, Arya was almost a woman grown, and Rickon was taller than Bran had ever been. The next morning he saw Theon too, and he asked him to forgive him. Bran told him he'd forgive everything he had done to him, but that he couldn't forgive him for betraying Robb. Jeyne Poole was in the Wall too, helping the men of the Watch, like Arya. She was still Sansa's friend, but now that she was an adult woman she got on well with Arya too. She had a baby, and was pregnant again.

That evening, Bran explained Jon his intentions of helping in the fight against the Others. Jon accepted his help, and asked him if he wanted to be the Lord of Winterfell. He was older than Rickon, and inheriting the castle was his right, he told him. Bran accepted the title, and told Jon that he would gladly go back to Winterfell to hold it and rebuild it during the war. As Winterfell had a Heart Tree, and Bran could fight in the Wall regardless of where his body was, that was a good idea. Jon agreed and, after spending a moon's turn at the Wall with his family, he made for Winterfell with Hodor and Meera, leaving Summer in Castle Black.

It was when they were already in Winterfell, and Bran's thirteenth name day was near, that he dared do what Sansa had told him to do long before. He had been trying to declare himself to Meera for many days, without finding neither the right moment nor the courage he needed. He was in the godswood, and had just returned to his body after warging into a raven to see beyond the Wall, when he noticed that Meera was with him, seated beside him. He looked at her, and she smiled.

"How is the Wall, my little prince?" She always called him that, no matter that he was no longer little, and had ceased being a prince a long time ago.

"It's fine, for now." He took a deep breath, gathering his courage. _This is the right moment_ , he thought. "There is something I want to tell you…"

"What is it, Bran?" She asked, a little more serious. She had probably noticed the uncertainty in his voice.

He lowered his gaze, looking at the ground where his useless feet laid, feeling discouraged. But he told himself that he had to try it. If there was any chance for them to be together, it depended on his confessing his feelings.

"I wanted to tell you that… Meera… I love you."

With that he closed his eyes, so that he didn't have to see her reaction. As soon as he uttered those words he found himself wishing to escape. And he knew that he could do it. He could warg into Summer, or get into the Heart Tree and explore times long past. He could spend entire days out of his body, as he had already done many times. But he forced himself to stay, and to be brave.

"Bran…" She called him. He opened his eyes, and raised his gaze slowly. They looked into each other's eyes for some seconds, and she kissed him. He had never thought that he would kiss a girl. Before his fall he had been too young, and after that, he hadn't thought that any girl could find him attractive. Besides, he didn't know any girl of his age. But now he realized that that kiss was the sweetest thing that had happened to him in a very long time, if not in his whole life, even though he hadn't believed it would happen a minute ago. He kissed her back, closing his eyes again, and they hugged tightly.

The rest of the year was quiet for Bran. Part of Winterfell had been rebuilt, and they could live there relatively comfortable while he had the rest of it repaired. He spent most of his time helping his siblings in the Wall, planning and supervising the rebuilding of the castle and, sometimes, meeting some bannerman or other to discuss different matters. But he also had free time, which he spent with Meera. They were happy to talk, play and be together, and even though she was sometimes sad and low-spirited in her grief, Bran found that it wasn't so difficult to cheer her up and make her smile.

However, at the end of that year, after Stannis had conquered the North, the Riverlands and the Iron Islands, something that nobody had wanted to believe possible, despite having heard about the possibility for a long time, happened: 3 dragons landed on Westeros, and Daenerys Targaryen with her army landed too. The timing of the arrival coincided with the one of the most dangerous threat in the North, when the wights had breached the Wall and the Others were besieging Castle Black.

The following year was of constant danger in the Wall and epic battles everywhere. In Winterfell, Bran enjoyed some safety, because not many wights made it so far away from the Wall, and most of the battles took place far away from there. However, he didn't enjoy of real stability until the war was over, much later.

 **Author Note:** Well, this was the last chapter before the epilogue. I hope its fast pace and lack of details didn't ruin it for you. If anyone has read as far as this and still liked it, please remember that you can make my day with a review!


	23. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

A long time went by before she could believe what they had told her. She had accepted long ago that she had no children anymore; that they were all dead. Revenge had been her only wish since she had opened her eyes again, so when the men of the Brotherhood told her what they had heard at the inns, she ignored them. Her family was already lost for her, and she hardly ever thought about her children now. She still grieved for them, but she scarcely remembered how they had been when they were alive. And anyway, even if they were actually alive, they would surely have changed a lot and now they wouldn't be kids anymore.

As time went by the news about her family persisted, and she often received reports about her son Brandon, often called "The Rebuilder", who was said to be living in Winterfell, and about the others, who were at the Wall. But the Wall was far away, and those men who talked in the inns of the Riverlands were just repeating what Stannis's men had said, and they could be lying for their own purposes.

But when Daenerys conquered the Seven Kingdoms people kept saying the same: Brandon and Rickon Stark were alive and in Winterfell, while Sansa was in the Vale of Arryn, where she lived with her husband. After that she could find no more reasons to dismiss the information as a lie, and reluctantly accepted it. So once she had seen to it that all the sons and grandsons of Walder Frey who had been to Edmure's wedding got their just deserves, she eventually decided to heed the rumors and meet again with what was left of her family. After all, she didn't have anything better to do, or anywhere else to go.

Thus she had traveled with the members of the Brotherhood who would follow her to Winterfell. They traveled silently and stealthily, and arrived unseen in the middle of the night. She commanded the men to hide in the stables while she looked for her children. She didn't look for her daughters, because she knew she wouldn't find them there. She went directly to Bran's room. There were no guards at the door, which struck her as odd. She pushed the door open and looked inside. The room was empty and there were no candles to be found anywhere. At the dim light of her torchlight she could see that the floor, the bed and all the furniture in the room was covered by a thick layer of dust. Nobody had come into that room in years, it seemed.

She was going to leave then, with her newly reborn hopes shattered again, but then she realized the reason why her son's bed was deserted: Bran was now the Lord of Winterfell, which meant that he should be sleeping in Ned's former chamber, instead of the one he had occupied when he was just the Lord's second legitimate son. She walked slowly through the corridors, trying not to make a sound. When she saw the familiar wooden door she felt her eyes go moist. This surprised her: she had not shed a tear since her awakening. She restrained a sob and stepped forward.

There were 2 men guarding the door. They were strangers to her, but she had not expected to know them. The ones who had manned the castle when she left it would most likely be all dead now. When they noticed her presence and asked who she was, she removed her hood and answered as clearly as she could "I am Lady Stark's ghost." She actually did look like a ghost, or worse, and she knew that was the only reason those northmen believed her and stepped aside in fear.

She came in, feeling like an actual ghost out of the castle's crypts. She delicately drew aside the curtains of the canopied bed and looked inside. There she found an auburn-haired boy with a face that vaguely resembled the one of the son she remembered. For the first time in years she felt some warmth in her heart. She sat on an armchair in Bran's room, shyly looking at him, and she recalled the many days and nights she had remained beside him in the sickroom after his fall, just looking at him and stroking his hair, half-mad in her grief and blind to anything else around her. It was the same now: Bran was still lying asleep on a bed, she was still mad with grief, as she had been ever since her stone heart started to beat again, and still she stood beside her unconscious boy, watching over him while he slept. She dared not touch him now, though. She felt that she would disappear when he opened his eyes, as if this visit to her child was the last wish the gods granted her before taking her away.

But when her son eventually awakened, she stayed right where she was. He opened his eyes widely in alarm when he first saw her, but then he recognized and invited her to sit next to him, and he hugged her when she did. He told her that Rickon was in the castle too, and he took her to see him. Her youngest son didn't know her, but that was hardly surprising: he had been 3 the last time he saw her, and she had been very different back then. Besides, Catelyn couldn't find in that 11-years-old boy the baby she had parted from long before, either.

Bran invited her to live in Winterfell again, but she hesitated before accepting. She didn't know if she could stay in that place which would constantly remind her of what she had lost, or that she could be happy again after having seen Robb killed, and after dying herself. She was afraid that all her happiness had died with her. But maybe there was still some hope for Catelyn, and in the end she decided to try to get everything she could of her life back. She knew her sons again, who told her about what they had gone through during the time they had been apart. Bran told her about his powers, and of the Children of the Forest. She believed him, because if a murdered woman could come back to life, why couldn't they exist? Knowing Rickon was harder for her, but as he had grown up in a time of constant changes he was an open-minded child, and he soon learned to forgive her for leaving him.

Some moons after her arrival, an event that would reunite all of House Stark was announced: Bran was going to marry Lady Meera. He would marry for love; she had only to look at his son's expression when he was with his betrothed to notice. Catelyn had liked Meera from the very beginning: she was kind and gentle, but also strong and brave. And she really seemed to love Bran. So, when the wedding was announced, her tears were of happiness, and the hug she gave the loving couple carried all the excitement and joy her heart was still capable of feeling.

The invitations were sent and sometime later the guests started to come. Winterfell was almost wholly rebuilt, and it could host all of them, fortunately. The first to arrive were the guests from the Wall. Jon, who to Catelyn's horror had been legitimized, was then Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. Arya was already a young woman, and she had been the first of her gender to take the black. Cat wasn't pleased by that, but decided to let it be. Her daughter was alive, and she didn't want to spoil their reunion by criticizing her decision. Also in that party were Jeyne Poole and her husband, Theon Greyjoy, whom Catelyn would have hanged in the godswood if she could, and Jeyne's children: Theon Bolton, Alannys and baby Vayon Greyjoy. Alannys and Vayon were Theon's, while Theon Bolton had been born from the forced marriage between Jeyne and Ramsay.

Arya greeted her mother in a very shy way, coming from her. Catelyn guessed that coming back to Winterfell had affected her some, and maybe she didn't want to show her feelings very openly. But when the girl saw Gendry, one of the men that had traveled with Catelyn to Winterfell, her greeting was much warmer and more cheerful than the one she had given her. Catelyn exposed her doubts to Bran, her most trusted son. He told her that, possibly, Arya was being distant with her because she feared not to be accepted after all she had done during that time.

So Catelyn approached her daughter when she was alone, and she told her, struggling to make her voice come out, covering her slit throat: "Arya, my dear, I am glad that you are fine. And I am proud of you, because you have managed to stay alive all this time, and on your own." Arya had looked her in the eyes and smiled slightly, relieved by her words. She had thanked her and hugged her. After that, she was more uninhibited with her.

Some days later the guests from the Vale arrived. They were Sansa with her husband, Harrold Hardying, and their children: a 3-namedays-old girl who had her mother's straight auburn hair, and a grey eyed and dark haired baby who was not yet a year old. The girl was called Catya, and the little one, Robb. Sansa hugged her mother, glad that she was alive, and acted naturally with her, except that, at the beginning, she seemed to avoid looking at her face whenever possible. She couldn't blame her daughter for that, though: Catelyn could hardly stand to look at her own reflection in the mirror.

Her daughter told her, as they had dinner, the most important things that had happened to her since Ned's death, so long ago. When she learned what her old friend, Petyr, had done, she wanted to hang him like the Freys. But Sansa had already dealt with him. She had told her husband that he had been behind Jon Arryn's murder, and that he had pushed Lysa out of the Moon Door. Harrold had decided to tell the queen about that (Daenerys had already conquered the Seven Kingdoms by the time Sansa decided to discuss the matter with her husband) and to leave justice in her hands, instead of killing the Lord Protector of the Vale by themselves, which may have caused a civil war in the region. As a result Petyr was executed under the queen's commands, and Sansa was named Lady Regent of the Vale, as she was the adult most closely related to Robert. The boy was then 14 name days, and he had grown noticeably. He was still small and weak for his age, but Sansa claimed that he had made considerable progresses.

After them came Howland Reed and his wife, who were very happy to see their daughter after a long time of having no word of her. They were also sad for their son's death, but the excitement of their only daughter's wedding succeeded in taking the grief away, at least for the moment.

A short time after his arrival, Lord Reed asked Catelyn to have a private talk with her. She guided him to a bench in the yard, from where they could see the young men of the castle training with sword and lance. There they could talk without drawing attention.

"Lady Catelyn, I want to tell you something that I have kept secret for years. It is a secret that doesn't belong to me, and I promised not to tell anyone. However, now the danger that made me hide it doesn't exist anymore, and I would like to clear the name of my friend, Eddard Stark, whose honor was only surpassed by the love he bore his family."

That was completely unexpected for Catelyn: what secret had Ned kept from her? And why did Howland want to 'clear his name'? She knew her husband had been one of the most honorable men she had ever known, and she didn't need anybody to defend his honor to believe that. But Catelyn didn't say anything, because she didn't know what to say and because speaking was painful, so she gestured for Howland to keep talking.

"You must surely know that I have fought with your husband in the Tower of Joy. And that it was there that we found Lyanna, Ned's sister. She was dying when we got to her. But has Ned ever told you what she died of?"

Catelyn shook her head. Ned had never told her, and she had never asked. She had thought that talking about that would make him sad, and that if he had wanted to tell her he would have done it.

"Lyanna died birthing Rhaegar's son. She was lying on a bed, bleeding and with the baby in her arms when we found her. She begged Ned to take the boy, and to raise him as his own. He promised her that he would do it, and she died peacefully some minutes later." Howland seemed to be removing a great weight he had been carrying for years when he said it, and Cat could perceive weariness in his voice. "Ned named the boy Jon, as Jon Arryn, the man who had raised him in the Eyrie. And he made me promise not to tell anyone who were his bastard's real parents."

Catelyn needed no further explanation from Howland to understand the reason for that lie: Robert Baratheon would have killed the boy without hesitation if he had known it. And she knew that Ned had lied to her because, though they were husband and wife, they didn't know each other well back then, and he didn't trust her yet. However, it hurt Catelyn to learn that he had hidden the truth from her even after having lived together in Winterfell for 14 years. She guessed that her cold behavior towards Jon was to blame for that. If she had been kind to him, Ned may have told her the truth. But she had been an awful stepmother, and she had shown openly her dislike for the boy.

"Have you told Jon?" She asked Lord Reed.

"No, I haven't. All his life he thought he was Ned's son, and I can see no reason to change that, considering that his true parents are also dead, and that he never met them. But you may tell him, if you wish."

Catelyn decided to tell him, because it was the least she could do for the young man she had caused so much suffering to in his childhood. Jon had been wary and mistrustful when she approached him, but when she told him that she knew who his parents were his expression changed completely and only showed expectation. It moved her to notice that he still wished to find the mother that hadn't been by his side when he was little. And after the revelation, Catelyn offered Jon to send a crow to Queen Daenerys, asking her to legitimize him as a Targaryen, and heir to the Iron Throne, in case she didn't have children.

"The only thing I ever wanted to be, Lady Catelyn, is a Stark. And now that I am finally one it proves to be a mistake, and I have to change my name to Targaryen. But I will accept it, because now that I know the truth I won't be able to be called a Stark without feeling as an impostor. I have no wish to rule the Seven Kingdoms, but I will if it ever becomes my duty."

Catelyn was surprised to notice how much he resembled Ned, and how difficult was to remember that he wasn't his son. She wondered if she should apologize for her behavior as a stepmother, but decided against it. Nothing could change the past, and it was silly to apologize for not loving someone.

Sometime after the bannermen of the Starks who had been invited to Bran's wedding arrived in Winterfell and the celebration finally took place. They got married in the godswood, as both of their Houses worshiped the Old Gods. And Catelyn was happier than she had been ever since King Robert Baratheon visited Winterfell.

After the celebration, which was rather short and quiet, the bannermen parted, leaving only the 2 families in Winterfell, and their parties. One night, as they were all having dinner, Arya announced suddenly: "Now that we are all together, I want to tell you something: I'm going to get married."

Everybody stared at her, astonished, and Bran, Rickon and Sansa asked her at the same time who she was going to marry. "I will marry Ser Gendry," she answered simply.

Catelyn was about to voice her disagreement with the marriage, but she didn't. Arya had never been one to worry about the opinion of others, and she knew that forbidding her to marry Gendry would not stop her from doing it. The best thing she could do was to accept her choice, she told herself. And instead of prohibiting her to do as she wished, she only asked her where she wanted to live with him.

"In Castle Black, of course. Jon finally allowed me to take the black, so now I am a sworn sister of the Night's Watch. Gendry will join the Watch too, and we will live together in Castle Black. But we won't be there for long, because now I am a wandering crow, and Jon promised to put Gendry in the same order as me, so we will be visiting often."

The announcement was accepted without much resistance by all the family, and the loving couple received everybody's blessing. The Reeds, who had been planning to set out for the Neck that week, decided to stay for the wedding.

Shortly after the announcement the wedding took place. The celebration, though even simpler and with fewer guests than Bran's (only the ones that were in the castle when it was announced went), had, unlike the other one, a bedding. Catelyn smiled as she saw her daughter and her future husband be taken to bed. She was going to be safe and happy, and she would see her often in the future.

Soon after that they set off for the Wall, together with Jon, Theon, Jeyne and their children. She bid them farewell, hoping to see them again soon. After that, the days that went by were quiet and without many memorable events. Cat enjoyed the opportunity to hold her first grandson in her arms and she watched little Catya in her play. She talked a lot with Sansa, who told her about her life in the Vale.

Cat was glad to notice that, besides Sansa's reluctance to look at her face, she didn't seem at all uncomfortable with her, and felt free to speak to her about everything. She even talked to her about her marriage. She confided her that, though she was happy with Harry and he was always kind to her, she had had some problems with him at the beginning, when they first moved to the Eyrie. He would go down to the Vale very often, and he never let her go with him. She had quickly realized that it meant she was not the only woman in his life. She had confronted him, and he had confessed it at her insistence, but he still claimed that Sansa was the only one he loved and really cared about. She had refused to talk to him for several days, and in the end he had had no choice but to beg her forgiveness. He had sworn to be faithful from that day on, and soon after that their son was born. Since then, Harry never left the Eyrie without inviting her to go with him, and if he did go without her, it was always her choice.

After some peaceful and uneventful moons Meera announced that she was with child, and that news brought everyone great joy. Bran decided that, as he would have a child that would be his heir, Rickon should be given a keep of his own. He offered his little brother the Dreadfort, on condition that he renamed it. Rickon accepted, and proposed to call his castle "Greywind Fort". Sansa asked Rickon, then, whether he had ever thought of getting married. Now he was the only Stark still single.

"I am 11. That is no age to get married."

"Not yet, but you can be betrothed to a girl. Is there anyone you would like to be betrothed to?" Meera asked kindly.

"Well, there is one girl I like very much, and I think I'd like to be betrothed to her. But she is much older than me."

"That doesn't matter, if she loves you too. Meera is 22, and she is married to me, though I'm not even a man grown," Bran intervened.

"Well, then. The girl I like is Shireen Baratheon," Rickon replied.

Shireen, from the day her father accepted that he couldn't possibly defeat an army that counted with the support of 3 dragons and that anyway Daenerys's claim was better than his own and surrendered to her, had ceased to be a princess, and she was now the heir of Storm's End. It wouldn't be hard to arrange the betrothal, provided that Stannis was willing to wait some years more to see his daughter married.

Rickon was surprised to see that they took the matter seriously and that they sent a letter to Storm's End with the proposal, but he was really excited when the letter with the affirmative answer came, settling that the wedding of Rickon and Shireen would take place after his fourteenth name day. Rickon decided then to leave the Dreadfort to Sansa, as he was going to get Storm's End, and one castle was more than enough for him. Though Sansa was now living in the Eyrie, her husband only had a small castle that belonged to him, so they were happy to be granted a larger one. However, Sansa said she'd like to change it completely before she moved in there, as she didn't wish her new home to have anything of its previous owners.

Sansa left for the Vale with her family soon after those matters were settled, leaving Catelyn with her 2 sons and Meera. A couple of months later they were visited by Arya and Gendry, who stayed in Winterfell until Meera's child was born. She proposed to call him Eddard, and Bran agreed. The day after Eddard's birth a white raven came to Winterfell, heralding the spring's arrival. This baby would remain innocent and foreign to winter's tragedies and war while he grew up, and by the time the next winter came, he would be almost a man grown, as her son Robb had been when the War of the Five Kings started. Catelyn prayed for the next Winter not to bring a war with him.

 **Author Note:** finally, this is the end of the story. This was a very long chapter, I know, and probably the worst, but now the fic is complete. So, if you have reached this point and didn't think my Harry-Potter-like epilogue didn't utterly ruined the story, I would love to read your reviews!


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